Fannie says, Tell us something we don't know

As noted below, Fannie's getting another tongue-lashing, this time in response to the Rudman report (or, as Fannie calls it, the "Paul, Weiss report" because of the involvement of Paul, Weiss, Rifkind, Wharton & Garrison, LLP).

You can download copies of the report and statements from Fannie execs here. Essentially, Fannie CEO and President Daniel H. Mudd notes that his organization "is a different company than a year ago. We have been humbled, even embarrassed." He goes on to cite its new management team, new positions created to oversee compliance and risk management, its recapitalization, and a more cooperative relationship with its inquisit -- er, its regulators and Congressional overlords.

He leaves it to Fannie board chairman Stephen Ashley to explain in more detail how Fannie Mae has (and is) responding to charges ranging from only paying "lip service" to ideas of corporate honest and openeness, to misleading information being provided to the board of directors, to "grossly inadequate" accounting systems, and more. Much of the response is, basically, "We knew that, we've already addressed that, we're going to address that."

But Fannie deserves credit for the openness it's showing now, both with cooperating with the report's writers and for a highly praised new working relationship with official Washington. Its biggest challenge might just be having to deal patiently and politely with each successive report rehashing what we largely already know about what went wrong at Fannie.