A Dream Worth Dreaming: Fannie's 'Charter Chuck'.(Federal National Mortgage Association)

There must be days when Fannie Mae chairman Franklin Raines goes home, metaphorically kicks the dog and says to himself over a double bourbon: "Why do I put up with this?"

If you've been following the Fannie/Freddie saga of the past eight months you know that the political heat has been turned up big time on these two congressionally chartered mortgage investing giants. The first shoe dropped in June when the Freddie accounting scandal reared its ugly head, resulting in the forced departures of then-chairman/CEO Leland Brendsel and then-president David Glenn.

The second shoe dropped in late December when the Federal Reserve (as in Alan Greenspan) issued a report, saying the two's presence in the market reduces mortgage rates by a scant seven basis points. (Yes, that's right, just seven basis points.) In its report, the Fed (more or less concluded) that the two are no longer needed, at least not in the conventional market.

Keep in mind that the many-tentacled behemoths that they are, Fannie and Freddie have plenty of legs and feet which means there are more "shoes" to drop, especially when Congress returns and revisits the contentious issue of strengthening regulation of the two.

And there's been two other recent, troubling developments for GSE executives. HUD has refused to extend a "bonus point" system that rewards Fannie and Freddie for buying smaller apartment buildings. Also, it's anticipated that the Bush administration wants the two to devote even more of their business to low- and moderate-income homebuyers.

And one other thing: recent changes in campaign finance laws make it harder for Fannie and Freddie to "participate in the political process" (my phrasing) by making enormously generous "soft money" donations to elected officials.

To boot, when it comes to the daily financial press, Fannie and Freddie have a huge bull's eye on their backs. Both are a favorite target of The Wall Street Journal's editorial page, which rarely lets the facts get in the way of a good editorial. And then there's FM Policy Focus, who's mission in life is to fence these two mortgage steers in as though they had mad cow disease.