In attempting to explain Palin’s “gaffe,” liberal bloggers seem oddly reliant on the past tense:
HuffPo, quoting Andrew Jakabovics: “It is somewhat nonsensical because up until yesterday there was sort of no public funding there.”
Benen: “Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac weren’t receiving any taxpayer money.”
Yglesias: “… in fact, they weren’t funded by the taxpayers at all.”
Pandagon: “Sarah Palin believes tat Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac were taxpayer-funded. They weren’t.”
Except, of course, now they are! Just like we always knew they would be! Palin’s point was obviously that 1. Fannie and Freddie have always been a huge liability for taxpayers, because 2. everyone knew that the government would bail them out if they failed, and 3. a McCain-Palin administration would use the government’s new authority over Fannie and Freddie to shrink these beasts down to size and protect taxpayers in the future.