Last night’s dreary 90 minutes illustrated why so many people respond to Sarah Palin: she speaks English, not wonkish.

McCain blew an opportunity to nail Obama on Fannie Mae. His answer came off as nyah-nyah-nyah. It was a sloppy job of explaining the situation.

Here’s how — my imagination, folks — Sarah Palin would have put it:

Back in the Clinton days, Democrats began leaning on lenders to make “sub-prime” loans to poor people and minorities. Sub-prime is politician talk for risky. 

Clinton and them, they all had their hearts in the right place. We all want everyone to live well, to own their home, to have a financial stake in their neighborhoods.

But risky means some loans won’t get paid back. Now, you’ve all heard of Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac — two quasi-government agencies that were not just busy buying up these risky loans, but pushing lenders to make even more of them.

And Fannie was run by Democrats, many of whom got rich. Franklin Raines walked away with $90 million after cooking Fannie’s books. He was forced out. You’d think he’d be hanging his head in shame, like those guys from Enron, but no, he was advising Obama on housing issues.

As early as April 2001, President Bush and key Republicans warned about the looming sub-prime disaster. They wanted to regulate Fannie and Freddie, but key Democrats threw a fit. One Democrat got so mad, he accused Republicans of “lynching.” Fannie and Freddie also threw a lot of money into their campaign coffers.

Now, for the past two weeks, Barack Obama has been blaming the financial crisis on Republicans who refused to regulate. It takes a special kind of brass to peddle that whopper, but with the New York Times and other media covering for him, why not?

But if Obama can’t honestly diagnose the cause, how can he honestly expect us to believe he can find a cure? Oh, and by the way, Obama collected the second most money from Fannie and Freddie.