BRAD DELONG ON FANNIE MAE AND FREDDIE MAC: “The chance that American taxpayers will actually lose any money if Ben Bernanke and Henry Paulson decide that Fannie and Freddie need government support is very low.” But read the whole thing, though the Grover Norquist bit doesn’t add a lot of value.

UPDATE: Some further thoughts: (1) DeLong is very reassuring in general. (2) Why not vent at Norquist? What’s a blog for if not that kind of thing? (3) His talking points cover a lot more ground than you can get across on pretty much any TV show. While I’m no particular fan of Bill Donohue’s, I’m grateful for some green-room advice he gave me in 1991, just before I was on Larry King (he was on in the segment before, bashing strip clubs; I followed to talk about space law). His advice: Figure out one sentence that you really want to get across and just say it at some point whether it fits the interview or not, because that’s about all you can be sure of getting across. Alas, that was excellent advice.

ANOTHER UPDATE: Reader Michael Gebert thinks I’m naive:

If Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac implode they will take a lot of well-connected Democratic party bigwigs down with them, and even do some damage to the candidate who just had to let Fannie Mae trough-feeder-in-chief Jim Johnson go from his inner circle, Barack Obama. Are we really surprised that Brad DeLong is out in front saying there’s no looming disaster and no scandal to be seen here?

DeLong often has good observations on economics, but he’s a loyal apparatchik for his party through and through.

Well, stay tuned.