Via Hot Air, Peter Viles explains why Palin’s remarks the other day in regards to Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac weren’t, as the Huffington Post claimed, a “gaffe”. See, Congress (with both Obama and McCain’s support) gave Treasury Secretary Henry M. Paulson Jr. a “blank check” to invest in the two mortgage giants earlier this summer.

It OKd a big bailout. Perhaps in your book a blank check freshly signed by Congress is not “too expensive.” Perhaps you trust the government not to spend a blank check. Perhaps pigs have wings. Palin was right: The very existence of a blank check means that Fannie and Freddie are too expensive to taxpayers…

No one knows how much, but the Treasury has signed contracts to invest up to $100 billion in each company. Oh, and loan them money too. Oh, and buy their mortgage-backed securities. Do you really want to argue that she made a mistake by saying the two companies are “too big and too expensive to the taxpayers”?

Viles goes on to assure us that Palin, like the rest, will end up making some sort of gaffe at some point, but this simply isn’t it. The mortgage giants had become too big and too expensive, and we the taxpayers now have to bail them out.

The Huffington Post’s use of lefty economists and one economist from a libertarian organization (CATO is libertarian, not conservative and he took the time to note it was a liability) should’ve given an indication that everything was not as clear as it appeared.