Strange World

(By Jay Nordlinger, National Review Online) - Barack Obama is a miraculous politician — maybe the luckiest one in the world. I think of this huge housing crisis. It should have come down badly on Obama’s head — damaged him severely. The Democrats’ policies, particularly on “fair lending,” have a lot to do with this mess. Obama supported those policies foursquare. And it gets worse for him — or should get worse.

The poster children for Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac are Franklin Raines and Jim Johnson. They got inconceivably rich in their jobs. As bad luck would have it, from the Obama point of view — or as bad luck ought to have it — these men are friends, advisers, and donors to Obama. This should have been a nightmare for him, politically.

Instead, it’s Christmas morning — a real boon. This is amazing. Sure, the Republicans ran a couple of ads, pointing out the Obama connection to Raines and Johnson. But the Republicans were immediately denounced as racists, because guess what? One of those men isn’t white.

What a strange world, and resoundingly to Obama’s advantage.