The New York Times reports that President George W. Bush is seeking to blame the housing market collapse on excess liquidity and views the current correction as normal. What are his goals? To keep "history" from blaming him for yet another "worst U.S. President ever" accomplishment.

As a "recovering alcoholic," Bush excels at motivating other people to cover up for his inadequacies (this is known as co-dependence). For instance, when his oil company, Spectrum 7, collapsed in 1986, he got Harken Energy to bail him out through his father's political connections. In the case of the current debt-fueled economic reversal, he has gotten his Treasury Secretary, Henry Paulson and Fed Chair Ben Bernanke to repeat the talking point that the subprime collapse is "contained" and won't affect the rest of the economy.

I think Bush is responsible for the housing collapse for three reasons:

• He used home ownership to help get reelected in 2004. For example, in a March 2005 article, the conservative American Enterprise Institute argued that Bush's "Homeowner Politics" as contributing to his reelection in 2004. He touted his leadership as being responsible for the overall U.S. homeownership rate in the second quarter of 2004 rising to an all time high of 69.2%. This helped his reelection -- of the 100 fastest growing counties in the U.S. -- most of them on the fringe of bigger metro areas -- Bush captured 97 in 2004.
• The mortgage industry has contributed heavily to Bush and Congress to prevent regulation. According to Common Cause, mortgage industry lobbyists have contributed $210 million to block Congress from restricting lending abuses that contributed to the subprime contraction. Ameriquest, a big mortgage lender against which many consumer complaints have been directed, contributed $7.8 million to Bush's 2004 reelection campaign, his inauguration and to Laura Bush's library foundation.
• His policies helped us reach the current crisis. Under Bush, Alan Greenspan's interest rate cuts and support for a rise in adjustable rate mortgages helped create the crisis. And so did mortgage companies' desire to get a return on their investment in Bush. In 2004, The Nation reported on one such policy -- cutting back on rental assistance for low income families while loosening restrictions on their ability to obtain mortgages. Specifically, Bush slashed Section 8 housing vouchers, which provide rental assistance to low income families, while easing restrictions on mortgage loans.

This sounds good until you realize that it has helped contribute to two million likely home foreclosures since it created a money making opportunity for many businesses while encouraging low income households to take on mortgages they could not afford. As these low income households go back to renting, those lost rental assistance vouchers will be sorely missed.

As I posted yesterday, politicians' natural instinct is to take credit for the good news and evade responsibility for the bad. As DealBreaker reports, this bad is continuing as BNP Paribas announced that it would not redeem investors' money in three of its subprime hedge funds -- prompting this comment from an anonymous money manager: "Remember those pictures from the Great Depression? The ones where the banks had to lock their doors because depositors were rioting to withdraw their savings. That's what we've got right now" .

So when all the damage has been tallied -- which could be years from now -- I believe that policymakers should propose rules that will prevent future presidents from using loose lending to boost their reelection prospects. We owe it to our children to keep the mistakes of one president from damaging our country's future.

Peter Cohan is president of Peter S. Cohan & Associates He also teaches management at Babson College and edits The Cohan Letter.