Is the GOM crisis like the sub-prime mortage crisis in that it's a Clintonista + GOP team failure?

[BolivarianHero]

Much like Clinton signed on the Republican effort to deregulate the banking centre in the 1990s, did Clinton work with the Gingrich Gang to prevent adequate regulations or loop-hole closures for deep water drilling?

It's kind of embarrassing when most European right-wingers favour more regulations and more consumer protections than every Democrat not named Dennis Kucinich. You guys are as bad on regulating oil and banking as us Canadians are at regulating telecom.

[pnwmom]

1. The Republicans had the votes to pass that with or without Clinton's signature.

It's their baby.

[BolivarianHero]

2. Really?

But it was passed in 1999, when Clinton's approval rating eclipsed 65%. Moreover, the Republicans were nowhere near a supermajority in either house. Why didn't he spend some of that political capital to influence Democrats or at the very least refuse to sign such a rotten bill. Surely someone as well-educated and as wonkish as Clinton ought to have known that regulation has kept the Canadian banking sector both strong and (to some extent) accountable.