Blaming minorities for the financial crisis

I just want to go on record with a brief post about this, even though it's pretty old news, because when the historians pore over my blog I don't want to have been silent on the subject:

The idea that the primary culprits for the housing crisis are minorities and/or bleeding heart liberal concern for minorities is an idea I'd never have thought could survive in nature. It's the kind of idea I imagine could only be produced after the construction and activation of an $8 billion Large Wingnut Collider. And even then, only for a fraction of a second, before it collapses under the weight of its own wrongness.

But no it's apparently quite hearty. In fact pretty much anywhere you hear or read a conservative opining about the root causes of the financial crisis, you will hear about the Community Reinvestment Act and how poor brown people hoodwinked the mortgage industry. It's not even a fringe view.

Perlstein, Gordon, and Yglesias have the details.