WASHINGTON, Dec. 21 (UPI) -- The White House Sunday blasted a front-page New York Times story that says the Bush administration worsened the home mortgage crisis.
"Most people can accept that a news story recounting recent events will be reliant on '20-20 hindsight.'" White House Press Secretary Dana Perino said in a statement. "Today's front-page New York Times story relies on hindsight with blinders on and one eye closed."
The Times story accuses the White House of stoking a "mortgage bonfire," by, among things, taking a "laissez faire" attitude toward regulation and "dismissed warnings from people inside and outside the White House that housing prices were inflated and that a foreclosure crisis was looming."
In her blistering statement, Perino said the piece's reporting "amounted to finding selected quotes to support a story the reporters fully intended to write from the onset, while disregarding anything that didn't fit their point of view."
She also lashed out at the story's reporters, who she said were "unfamiliar" with President George Bush's prime-time address on the causes of the financial crisis.
"That the NYT ignored such an important economic speech to the American people and the complex causes of the crises is gross negligence," Perino said.
