Some more links and information:
This is a really deep article dated Jan 2005 from Forbes about the mess.
Politico has one on the fingerpointing. Not particularly deep, but worth a skim.
This comment caught my eye from a political thread elsewhere (although I admit that opening up discussion on the actual content of the bills is

):
The GSEs weren't private enterprises in any real way-- that government guarantee did exist, and these guys knew it. So a guy like Hagel would have seen himself as fulfilling his fiduciary duty to the taxpayer with this kind of "regulation".
alcyone