TheBakersfieldCalifornian.com

The best thing about watching "Dragnet" in the 1960s was following Detective Joe Friday's investigation. To get the story he pressed witnesses -- no matter how uncomfortable it made them -- and gradually pieced together sources, motives, activities and connections. Because Joe Friday wanted "just the facts ma'am," he didn't play games.

Unfortunately we can't say the same about the Republican report on the 2007-2008 market meltdown.

Like a botched police report, it downplays or ignores pertinent and obvious connections while focusing on information that allows Republicans to argue that the government is to blame for the 2007-2008 market crash.

But first, some background.

To help us understand what caused the 2007-2008 market crash, the bi-partisan Financial Crisis Inquiry Commission (FCIC) was created. Unfortunately, as Shahien Nasiripour pointed out in the Huffington Post on Dec. 15, Republican commission members wanted to exclude "Wall Street," "deregulation," "shadow banking" and "interconnection" from the FCIC's report. Huh?

Can you imagine Joe Friday getting handed a welfare fraud case then deciding not to use the words "welfare" or "fraud" during his investigation? Neither can I.

What's clear is that the Republican members on the commission -- which includes Bakersfield's own Bill Thomas -- aren't interested in finding the real sources or connections behind the 2008 market crash. Unlike Joe Friday, they're more interested in establishing a political narrative that blames the government for the reckless gambling and greed pursued by private investors and Wall Street.

To make this narrative come to life, Republican commission members need Americans to believe one thing: Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac -- which were privately managed at the time -- are to blame. The narrative is made complete by focusing on Federal Reserve-determined interest rates or legislation like the Community Reinvestment Act, which "forced" banks to lend to the poor.

Focusing on these factors makes it easier to blame "incompetent" government actions. Wall Street investors, the Republican narrative tells us, were simply caught in the crossfire. End of story.

The findings from the Republican report -- which they like to call a "primer" -- would've been much different if Joe Friday were a Republican FCIC member. For example, after looking at real estate markets Friday would have reminded his colleagues:

* The real estate bubble and crash was global. Freddie, Fannie and the Community Reinvestment Act aren't global.

* Our commercial real estate market bubbled and crashed, too. Fannie, Freddie and the CRA had nothing to do here.

Just the facts, ma'am.

Not satisfied, Joe Friday would have also asked about our "shadow banking" system and shifting market share. He would have learned:

* Federal Reserve data reported that more than 84 percent of subprime mortgages in 2006 (right before the crash began) were issued by private (shadow) lending institutions.

* Of these, only one of the top 25 subprime lenders in 2006 was directly subject to the housing laws like the CRA.

* Inside Mortgage Finance reported that between 2004 and 2006 (when subprime lending exploded) "Fannie and Freddie went from holding a high of 48 percent of the subprime loans that were sold ... to holding about 24 percent."

Still not satisfied, Friday would have followed additional leads and interviewed Federal Reserve Chair Ben Bernanke. Here's what Bernanke would have told him:

"(M)ore than 30 years and recent analysis of available data, including data on subprime loan performance, runs counter to the charge that CRA was at the root of, or otherwise contributed in any substantive way to, the current mortgage difficulties."

Still not convinced, Joe Friday would have learned that back in 2003 Republicans began praising subprime lending as the type of innovative lending that comes from deregulated or "unfettered" markets. Friday would've also found that Republicans actually used Wall Street talking points to criticize Freddie and Fannie, which helped AIG, Goldman Sachs, Lehman, Merrill Lynch, etc., muscle in on their market share.

Then Friday would have asked why the Bush administration pressured Fannie and Freddie to purchase the toxic instruments that Wall Street and private investors poisoned through complex securitization and insurance schemes. This, he would have learned, is what helped put the American taxpayer on the hook for trillions in mortgage and derivative contracts. Put another way, Joe Friday would have learned that "deregulation" and the "shadow banking" world created by "interconnected" private investors actually energized Wall Street's gambling and greed.

But Republican commission members weren't interested in using these terms. So they issued their own "primer" which conveniently omitted them. Just the facts ma'am. Just facts.

Mark A. Martinez, Ph.D., is a professor of political science at CSU Bakersfield and author of 2009's "The Myth of the Free Market."