Now he's blaming the Bush administration; finger-pointing is never a good sign. Politico:

And after weeks of public magnanimity toward the Bush administration and much cooperation between the outgoing and incoming economic teams, Obama expressed irritation at what he described as a lack of urgency on the part of the incumbent about offering mortgage assistance to struggling homeowners.

“I'm disappointed that we haven't seen quicker movement on this issue by the administration,” Obama said. “We have said publicly and privately that we want to see a package that helps homeowners not just because it's good for that particular homeowner; it's good for the community.’

But pressed by Brokaw if he or his advisers had conveyed their unhappiness on the mortgage question to the Bush administration, Obama dodged. “We have specifically said that moving forward we have to have a housing component to any actions that we take. If we are only dealing with Wall Street and we're not dealing with Main Street, then we're only handling one half of the problem,” he said.

Obama's been dodging for quite some time. There's been a perfectly reasonable, crafted, and proven solution on the table since February, called HOLC (the tag; an explanation). HOLC was an FDR program that kept people in their homes by renegotiating mortgage terms -- which helped the banks regain trust because it cleaned up their balance sheets -- and it even made a small profit for the government when it ended. Well, first Obama said HOLC should be "studied" (we know what that means), and then he said there should be some help for homeowners "after I take office" (and who knows what that means).

It all boils down to the two trillion Big Money got NOW NOW NOW under the Bush + Reid + Pelosi + Obama + Paulson bailout bill. Big Money is the priority, and help for homeowners can come LATER LATER LATER LATER.

Obama missed an opportunity to correct the impression left by his nominee for Fed, Tim Geithner. Geithner's been trashing FDIC head Sheila Bair as "not a team player" (deadly fire in the Village) for no other apparent reason than that she's trying to help homeowers.

Now, rather than come up with his own plan, Obama trashes the Republicans for not coming up with one. How about rather than, er, playing the blame game, Obama comes up with his own plan?

NOTE Let's remember what Elizabeth Warren said: "Any effective policy has to start with the households"? But Obama's not starting with households. Could it be that "the economy is big problem and it's going to get worse because Obama's policies are wrong?