In Hillary Clinton's speech yesterday she proposed that Alan Greenspan be among three leaders of a committee to resolve our housing-mortgage crisis.

I would imagine that actually Greenspan would be a good selection to this committee, since who more than Alan Greenspan, the prime architect of the current disaster would have a greater interest in providing a soft landing.

And who more than Alan Greenspan, based on his own words, would care less about the ultimate long range consequences of such a bailout.

I remember very clearly the 60 minutes interview when he denied that he was aware of the corruption and excesses of the sub prime mortgages that were creating the bubble. He looked at the interviewer, Katie Couric, and said, with the quiet authority that made him an icon of an adoring congress, that he was unaware that the mortgage markets were spiraling out of control. Couric came back to him with a quote form another Federal Reserve board member, whom the record showed gave him an explicit detailed warning of exactly what was happening and the inevitable consequences.

His response,with a hint of a smile was: "I didn't get it." It was the exact inflection that makes the term so appropriate for the slacker who didn't understand that it was wrong to copy his term paper from the internet, or to have an extra drink before driving home on a rainy night. "I didn't get it," a phrase that could only be improved upon by Steve Martin's classic, "Well, Excuse Me"

Later in the same interview when Couric asked if he had protected his own wealth from the precipitous loss of the value of the American dollar, with that impish smile, he responded, "let's say I'm diversified." Yes, I'm sure he, and his financial elite colleagues are well diversified, in currencies not affected by the American dollar, the economy that he was charged with protecting.

Hillary Clinton has decided that she will take up the cause of the American Homeowner. In doing this she is attempting a gross simplification of the cast of characters in this sad drama. . She is counting on the meme of "homeowner" to tug at the heartstrings of voters, and elicit an outpouring of sympathy. Of course, she is hoping that taxing every American to bailout those who willfully bought into this corruption will not incur the outrage of the voters. She is contrasting her worthy homeowners with those who engineered this debacle, who rightly should be made to suffer. In doing so she is hoping that the American people will not realize that those people who took these mortgages are the ones who now have the new houses with the granite tops in spanking new neighborhoods, while among those who she will tax to keep them in these houses, are those struggling to pay for upkeep on their older homes, or are now paying more for rent based on a burgeoning inflation that is party caused by this mortgage disaster.

Greenspan is on top of the list of those responsible for this disaster, as he could have imposed regulations that would have cut out the worst of the excesses. In a close second place is the Bush Administration, that actually prevented state attorneys General from cracking down on these excesses under the concept of Federal Preemption.

And the Democratic party is far from guiltless. They demanded that the poorest segment of our society have the right to home ownership. Pressure was put on banks and mortgage brokers to provide loans to everyone, no matter what that ability to pay for it.

In spite of the Republicans being far more culpable, both parties willfully closed their eyes to the inevitable consequences of artificially low interest rates and bogus mortgages. Too many were in on the game: The mortgage brokers who never pointed out the fine print that made refinance onerous, the investment banks who designed these instruments and winked at the fragility of the income flow, the rating agencies, such as Standard and Poor, who slapped these aggregations of loans with triple A ratings. And the CEOs at the top of these companies, who raked in their mega fortunes along with the hedge fund operators who knew that the bubble had a way to go before exploding on the American people.

The Democrats, ostensibly the party of the people, are too close to those at the top of the financial pyramid., It was Bill Clinton who signed into law some of the key legislation that loosened regulations on the most arcane derivatives. Chairmanship of Goldman Sachs seems to be the stepping stone to Secretary of treasury for both parties from Rubin to Paulson. Their careers were made by fostering aggressive speculation, with the well being of the those whose struggle along at less than a seven figure salary rather remote from their thinking.

But it will be those people who don't make great salaries, and now don't own their own homes, who will be among those forced to pay for this debacle. Hillary Clinton wants to protect the good "homeowners," the victims of predatory lending, but she is fostering a pernicious illusion. Those people who decided to take a mortgage on the appreciated bubble value of their homes, while mislead, were not defrauded by the lender. They got their money on the refi, or they got the house. When they took the bait to refinance to the max, they got that check for a hundred grand or several times that; and they got to spend it as they pleased.

The neighbor next to to him didn't get that check. They didn't remodel their home, or take that trip, or buy that new SUV. Or maybe the money was used for more admirable purposes, sending a kid to college, or taking care of an elderly parent. The point is that the person who signed a loan mortgage got to provide these service while their neighbor did not. Or maybe the neighbor was a renter, who was waiting for prices to peak, or didn't want to overextend himself. His prudence is about to be punished, severely, if Clinton gets her way.

The victims of predatory mortgages received their money, or they got their dream home, for which they agreed to pay back at the terms defined by the loan agreement. Many were mislead, but separating the greedy from the naive is an impossible task. Did they really believe that their home would continue to double in value every five years. Did they not realize that if it did, anyone who worked for a living would be consigned to paying rent for the rest of their lives.

All the solutions to this mortgage debacle are bad solutions. Once the well has been poisoned, once the virus is unleashed on the population, once pandemic corruption has been embraced by both parties, all solutions are are contaminated by the original sin.

It looks like Senator Clinton's answer, being that she chooses to place her distressed mortgagee homeowners in the role of the innocent victims may be one of the worst of the bad solutions to this problem. She treats them like the Katrina victims, rather than those who played an integral part in creating this bubble.

Suggesting Alan Greenspan to lead a committee to solve this crisis is like suggesting that Donald Rumsfeld head a committee to extricate us from Iraq. And as in Iraq, we need to face harsh realities, and address this with a cool realism that will prevent future financial meltdowns

Will Obama accept Clinton's flawed characterization of this crisis. Will he also relegate the decision to the very people who allowed the cancer to metastasize, so they can set the stage for the next bubble that enriches the "malefactors of great wealth" while impoverishing the masses. This is a time for substance over illusion; and I hope he can deliver.