The proceedings of the congressional conference committee on financial regulation are being broadcast on C-SPAN, as Rep. Barney Frank promised, while all the important deals are being conducted in backrooms with no input from Republicans, as I reported would be the case. But it would be a mistake to assume that Republicans can’t accomplish anything at the proceedings simply because they’ve been cut out of the negotiations: GOP lawmakers are playing to the camera, using the opportunity to draw attention to the Democrats’ complicity in the Fannie Mae/Freddie Mac disaster and their refusal to do anything about the government-sponsored housing agencies, which continue to hemorrhage money at taxpayers’ expense.

The Republicans have repeatedly attempted to offer amendments to shut down, privatize, and spin off Fannie and Freddie, or, failing that, at least to include the full cost of their bailouts in the federal budget. Frank, who is presiding over the committee, has repeatedly ruled that these amendments are not germane to the underlying overhaul of the nation’s financial-regulatory system — not germane, that is, to a bill designed to address the causes of the financial crisis and prevent another, similar one from striking. Fannie and Freddie indisputably contributed to the severity and the scope of the crisis, thanks to people like Frank, who relentlessly pushed them to focus more on “affordable housing.”

Frank, however, has been engaged in an attempt to rewrite his role in the financial meltdown — it’s never good for a Democrat when such a bastion of liberal conventional wisdom as Vanity Fair is listing you in its “100 to Blame” for the crisis. Over the past week, as Republicans have pushed the issue in conference, Frank has become increasingly annoyed — and increasingly bold in his historical revisions. On Tuesday, Rep. Jeb Hensarling (R., Tex.) called him on it.

“Now I think I have heard the chairman say that in 2004 he switched his position on the government-sponsored enterprises,” Hensarling said. “I have in my possession a letter dated June 28, addressed to then-president George W. Bush, where the chairman is the first signatory.”

Hensarling proceeded to read portions of the letter, an excerpt from which goes as follows:

We write as members of the House of Representatives who continually press the GSEs to do more in affordable housing. Until recently, we have been disappointed that the Administration has not been more supportive of our efforts to press the GSEs to do more. We have been concerned that the Administration’s legislative proposal regarding the GSEs would weaken affordable housing performance by the GSEs, by emphasizing only safety and soundness.

“Now this is in the public record,” Hensarling said. “I certainly don’t have all of the gentleman’s correspondence from the public record, so I don’t know when in 2004 the chairman changed his position.”