Oh, Jeebus. The political shizz has hit the fan in my husband's family. Earlier today, my MIL sent the BS e-mail that tries to tie the Fannie/Freddie scoundrels to the Obama campaign. It was forwarded to her from one of our most conservative relatives, and it upset her because she wants to vote for Obama but is not savvy enough to see this for what it is. I forwarded to her the Snopes link that debunks the email. Later this evening, I got this from my husband's grandparents:

"xxx and I have, through our banking experience, a very thorough understanding of the mortgage mess and how we got into this trouble. There is plenty of blame to go around, but the facts bear out that the only politicians who tried to get over-sight and reign in Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac were Republicans, starting with President Bush. The strongest promoters of loosening the lending guidelines were Schumer, Dodd and Frank, etc. who were the members of the Banking Committee. When I was in Real Estate, I couldn't believe the lending practices that were in place. These loans would never have been made if the lending institutions had had to keep them rather than sell them to Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac. We both knew that what was going on in lending and at Fannie and Freddie was just a ticking time bomb. It's bad enough that we're in this situation, but to have the Democrats not only fail to admit their mistakes, but put all the blame on Bush and the Republicans is unbelievable. There is public record of the votes, this isn't something we made up. If you're interested in more factual information, we're going to try to get a copy of a Special Report on Saving our Economy that aired last evening. They had all the dates and info that is the truth."

WTF do I do with that whopper? I'm inclined to let it ride and not do anything, but they cc'd my MIL on this reply, and she thinks the sun rises and sets on them. My GFIL was a president of a bank and my GMIL was a real estate broker. I don't know what this "Special Report" is that she's referrring to, but if it has anything to do with Fox, I'm going to shoot myself.

I need some help deflecting this load. Or, if it's not worth it, I'm fine with that advice too.

EDITED TO ADD: Shit-hell-damn, I just Googled that Special Report, and it WAS on Fox. I just KNEW it!!!

Your MIL is under the delusion that the only thing ailing this country's financials is the subprime lending crisis, or mortgage problems. That is just the tip of the iceberg.

The rest of the iceberg has to do with doubling the debt and therefore the interest on the debt, pushing more load onto households. There there is outsourcing, and insourcing. Then there is devaluation of the $, balance of trade issues. No long term, sustainable plan for anything and on and on.

Even if, for the sake of argument, you put the entire mortgage mess on Obama (which is silly), you are still left with 8 years of Republican "leadership" which has produced the rest of the mess.

Sounds like she agrees that deregulation is a problem, and wants to say that McCain is the only one who did anything about it, in HOUSING. But there are many many OTHER industries: Banking (hello, McKeating), communications, energy. Deregulation is a problem in ALL of them. And it is clear that as Obama says, "Pain trickles up". Well it should also be really clear about now that pain trickles down. Who will suffer from the coming depression triggered by Wall Street? And she should agree that corporatism in government is a bad thing.

Trickle-down in general, deregulation in general, corporatism in general, are Republican themes.