Fannie & Freddie's infinite playlist

During the second presidential debate McCain dissed Obama for taking money from Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac:

McCain: Meanwhile, they were getting all kinds of money in campaign contributions. Sen. Obama was the second highest recipient of Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac money in history -- in history.

If you check out this fact, Obama has received $120,349 in political donations from employees of Freddie Mac and Fannie Mae. By contrast, McCain received $21,550. Please note that the money is coming from the employees of these quasi-governmental organizations.

Now the AP is reporting that Freddie Mac secretly paid a Republican consulting firm $2 million to kill legislation that would have regulated and trimmed the mortgage finance giant and its sister company, Fannie Mae, three years before the government took control to prevent their collapse. This isn't any smoking gun because (a) I don't know what was in the bill, and (b) Freddie Mac was targeting only Republicans to vote against the bill since the democrats in congress were already against it.

But the suprising thing that comes out in the article is this: McCain's campaign manager, Rick Davis, or his lobbying firm has taken more than $2 million from Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac dating to 2000. In December, Freddie Mac contributed $250,000 to last month's GOP convention.

So, McCain is slamming Obama for taking FM's money, while accepting more than twice that during an event designed to elect him as president. Where's the straight talk in that?

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