[Intolerant in NJ]

You forgot the repeal of Glass-Steagall (engineered by Robert Rubin and signed by Bill Clinton), the AQ program to help warehouse excess production of quickie mortgages, and the corruption of the rating agencies which were slapping triple A ratings on vehicles they didn’t understand.
Bush's speech was pretty much boilerplate we're going to help the poor and downtrodden. Being a brilliant man and a perceptive and visionary leader, he knew better than to undertake a public campaign against the shaky mortgage industry which would have tanked the markets for sure. It does seem a reasonable alternative to try to get some sort of control over the Fannies, which were leading the way and enabling the creation of so many risky loans. It’s just a wee bit disingenuous to talk about how Fannie and Freddie were taking only conforming loans without acknowledging that the standards for what was considered “conforming” had been lowered so drastically, beginning as early as 1993 with the abandonment of the 20% down-payment requirement. Things probably deteriorated worst under Andrew Cuomo who announced as HUD secretary "GSE presence in the subprime market could be of significant benefit to lower income families, minorities, and families living in underserved areas". By the time he left office Fannie and Freddie were buying over 50% of their loans to service low and moderate-income families. Bush couldn’t order the FM’s directly to return to higher standards of lending because although they had considerable governmental advantage like reduced interest rates with and a standing line of credit from the US Treasury and were perceived by the public to have government backing (and eventually had to be bailed out by the taxpayers to the tune of $400 billion) they were independent entities with their own governing bodies peopled by the likes of financial wizard Rahm Emmanuel. The next best thing was to attempt to gain some control over them with regulations similar to those already imposed on banks, S&L’s, and credit unions. But as long as they remained such cash cows for the Democrats, they were having none of it. Attempts to produce laws regulating them were met as attacks by congressional Democrats led by Chris Dodd and Barney Frank, who at one point argued that attempts at regulation were "an artificial issue created by the administration...I don't think we are in any remote danger here", and on went the parade. There's a reason there has never been a complete investigation and accounting for the financial disaster in 2008 - half the Democrat pary would have ended up behind bars.

[Pelham]

I’ve known about Glass-Steagall since I passed my Series 7 back in the ‘80s. You’re not telling me anything I don’t know about. Moreover Glass-Steagall was eroded piecemeal over the decades and there was no “repeal” during the Clinton administration. Investment banks were still under the SEC and not the FDIC, they weren’t deposit takers, and they were already free to write mortgages before Clinton. If anything that passed during Clinton led to the debacle it was the Commodity Futures Modernization Act of 2000, not the imaginary repeal of G-S.

“Bush’s speech was pretty much boilerplate we’re going to help the poor and downtrodden”

No, it was the announcement of a very real $200 million per year taxpayer financed program which he supported that was intended to expand minority home ownership. He says it very clearly, it was not boilerplate. He signed the bill in 2003 when the Affordability Index in California was already in the teens, which in every other housing cycle meant a market top. Bush’s foolish program threw fuel on the market when it already should have been topping.

“. It’s just a wee bit disingenuous to talk about how Fannie and Freddie were taking only conforming loans without acknowledging that the standards for what was considered “conforming” had been lowered so drastically, beginning as early as 1993 with the abandonment of the 20% down-payment requirement.”

It’s not disingenuous at all. Conforming loans were the least subject to default after the bubble collapsed, just as they were predicted to do. That’s why there are conforming loans in the first place. Lazard ran a study post collapse that verified this for their clients.

“and were perceived by the public to have government backing “

Which no law required or guaranteed despite what “the public” perceived. And certainly major investors are expected to do their own Due Diligence and it would have taken maybe 5 minutes to figure out that there was no guarantee. At least until Dubya decided to bail out F&Fs investors by sticking the American taxpayer with the tab.

“(and eventually had to be bailed out by the taxpayers to the tune of $400 billion)”

There was no “had to be bailed out” about it. The investors in F&F should have been stuck with the loss... they sure as hell weren’t sharing their profits with taxpayers in the good times. The most likely reason for sticking taxpayers with bailing out F&Fs investors is nothing other than cronyism between Wall Street and the political hacks running Treasury for both Clinton and Bush. The reason that no one has been prosecuted for anything leading to the disaster is because both parties were up to their eyeballs in it, and much of what they were doing wasn’t illegal thanks to bipartisan bills like CFMA 2000.