"During those same explosive three years, private investment banks � not Fannie and Freddie � dominated the mortgage loans that were packaged and sold into the secondary mortgage market. In 2005 and 2006, the private sector securitized almost two thirds of all U.S. mortgages,"

How can that be when Freddie and Fannie hold half of the mortgages in the US? Are they not responsible to check them to see they are good when they buy the mortgages?

NYT: The bailout plan for Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac now hold or guarantee about half of the country’s mortgages.

At a 2004 hearing of the Government Sponsored Enterprises Subcommittee, then-Chairman Rep. Richard Baker, Louisiana Republican, predicted the collapse of Fannie Mae if nothing was done. Baker called for more regulation, something Democrats claim Republicans never wanted.

President Bush was calling for more oversight of Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac in his first year as president, though he also praised efforts to expand minority homeownership at a time when bad credit risks were straining the system.
Rep. Maxine Waters, D-Calif., said in a Sept. 25, 2003, hearing of the House Committee on Financial Services, "We do not have a crisis at Fannie Mae and in particular Freddie Mac under the outstanding leadership of Frank Raines."
It was Raines who took close to $100 million in "compensation" from Fannie Mae during his tenure as its CEO.
In the 2004 hearing, Rep. William Lacy Clay, D-Mo., called the investigation that found illegal activity at Fannie Mae a "lynching," an incendiary word, as both Clay and Raines are African-American.