SAY GOODNIGHT, GATORS

It is 6:08 a.m. and Junior is a a paintball event and the little white dog is building a nest on his afghan at my feet.

GATORS:

Well, well, I guess losing by one point to an unranked two-loss SEC team in the Swamp pretty well ends Florida's race for the National Championship for this year. Guess we don't have anyone who can kick a 47 yard field goal. OK, no problem, we shift gears away from wins and focus on getting the stats up for a Heisman Run for Tebow and/or Harvin. Guess we weren't really as hot as we thought. One more year left on this quest, tho.

The one consolation is that Georgia got pissed on between the hedges by the Tide. Ha-Ha. Guess they weren't so hot as THEY thought either.

So, big shake-up in the polls, with Numbers 1,2, and 4 losing... Uh, when's basket ball start?

POLITICS:

Huckabee has a new show on Fox, with Elizabeth as his first guest, couldn't record it because it wasn't listed on the program guide, or does it start tonight? Ought to be very interesting. We've grown to like him more and more since he joined Fox as a contributor--snazzy move.

TODAY'S QUOTE:

How beautiful is Victory, but how Dear. --Buofflers

FROM THE INBOX:

Big Government: Barack Obama and Democrats blame the historic financial turmoil on the market. But if it's dysfunctional, Democrats during the Clinton years are a prime reason for it.

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Obama in a statement yesterday blamed the shocking new round of subprime-related bankruptcies on the free-market system, and specifically the "trickle-down" economics of the Bush administration, which he tried to gig opponent John McCain for wanting to extend.

But it was the Clinton administration, obsessed with multiculturalism, that dictated where mortgage lenders could lend, and originally helped create the market for the high-risk subprime loans now infecting like a retrovirus the balance sheets of many of Wall Street's most revered institutions.

Tough new regulations forced lenders into high-risk areas where they had no choice but to lower lending standards to make the loans that sound business practices had previously guarded against making. It was either that or face stiff government penalties.

The untold story in this whole national crisis is that President Clinton put on steroids the Community Redevelopment Act, a well-intended Carter-era law designed to encourage minority homeownership. And in so doing, he helped create the market for the risky sub prime loans that he and Democrats now decry as not only greedy but "predatory."

Yes, the market was fueled by greed and over leveraging in the secondary market for sub primes, vis-a-vis mortgaged-backed securities traded on Wall Street. But the seed was planted in the '90s by Clinton and his social engineers. They were the political catalyst behind this slow-motion financial train wreck.

And it was the Clinton administration that mismanaged the quasi-governmental agencies that over the decades have come to manage the real estate market in America.

As soon as Clinton crony Franklin Delano Raines took the helm in 1999 at Fannie Mae, for example, he used it as his personal piggy bank, looting it for a total of almost $100 million in compensation by the time he left in early 2005 under an ethical cloud.

Other Clinton cronies, including Janet Reno aide Jamie Gorelick, padded their pockets to the tune of another $75 million.

Raines was accused of overstating earnings and shifting losses so he and other senior executives could earn big bonuses.

In the end, Fannie had to pay a record $400 million civil fine for SEC and other violations, while also agreeing as part of a settlement to make changes in its accounting procedures and ways of managing risk.

But it was too little, too late. Raines had reportedly steered Fannie Mae business to sub prime giant Countrywide Financial, which was saved from bankruptcy by Bank of America.

GO GATORS