Eliot Spitzer: Bushwhacked by the bankers' friend?

When the Bush regime took over, the US's consumer protection laws in the sphere of mortgage lending were dumped. Predatory practices and racially-profiled lending policies led straight to the 'sub-prime' crisis that now threatens a worldwide economic collapse. But, says Greg Palast:

There was this annoying party-pooper. The Attorney General of New York, Eliot Spitzer, who sued these guys to a fare-thee-well. Or tried to.

Instead of regulating the banks that had run amok, Bush's regulators went on the warpath against Spitzer and states attempting to stop predatory practices. Making an unprecedented use of the legal power of 'federal pre-emption', Bush-bots ordered the states to NOT enforce their consumer protection laws. Indeed, the feds actually filed a lawsuit to block Spitzer's investigation of ugly racial mortgage steering. Bush's banking buddies were especially steamed that Spitzer hammered bank practices across the nation using New York State laws.

And the very day that Spitzer made his big error he was in Washington to bring his war against evildoers and thieves nearer to home:

It was the night of February 13 when Spitzer made the bone-headed choice to order take-out in his Washington Hotel room. He had just finished signing these words for the Washington Post about predatory loans: 'Not only did the Bush administration do nothing to protect consumers, it embarked on an aggressive and unprecedented campaign to prevent states from protecting their residents from the very problems to which the federal government was turning a blind eye.'

Bush, Spitzer said right in the headline, was the 'Predator Lenders’ Partner in Crime'. The President, said Spitzer, was a fugitive from justice. And Spitzer was in Washington to launch a campaign to take on the Bush regime and the biggest financial powers on the planet.

Spitzer wrote, 'When history tells the story of the subprime lending crisis and recounts its devastating effects on the lives of so many innocent homeowners the Bush administration will not be judged favorably.'

But now, the Administration can rest assured that this love story – of Bush and his bankers — will not be told by history at all, now that the Sheriff of Wall Street has fallen on his own gun.

If you want to hear the rest of what Greg has to say, it's here.