Protests and Hecklers Have Mortgage Bankers Longing for Good Old Days

[groovedaddy]

SAN FRANCISCO — It was just another business-as-usual day at the annual convention of the nation’s mortgage bankers: a few panels, a few presentations and an attempted abduction of Karl Rove.

Mr. Rove, the Republican strategist and former adviser to President Bush, was accosted onstage during a convention panel here on Tuesday morning by a protester who tried to handcuff and arrest him “for treason.” Mr. Rove tried to elbow her away before she was taken offstage.

No one was injured and no arrests were made, but the stage-storming was just the latest outburst at an event that usually packs all the excitement of a mortgage calculator. On Monday, another panel was interrupted by protesters demanding a moratorium on foreclosures, and hecklers screamed at attendees through bullhorns outside.

The convention was booked for San Francisco well before the national mortgage meltdown, the $700 billion bailout and all the recriminations between. But the rancor of the protests and the general malaise in the mortgage business has left more than a few conventioneers, like Gregory B. Lucas, a mortgage broker from Pomona, Calif., fondly remembering the good old days of the industry’s gatherings.

http://www.nytimes.com/2008/10/22/us/22mortgage.html?th&emc=th

[Downtown Hound]

1. Jay Leno is performing for those scumbags?

God, I can't stand that man. He basically uses his show as a campaign prop for Ah-nuld and now this. Never watching him again.

I'm glad these slime are at least feeling some heat, but it's far less than they deserve

[Merlot]

2. Why was rover there?

[Dr.Phool]

3. His ass is about to be foreclosed?

[Donnachaidh]

4. mortgage brokers and karl rove - the scummiest of the scum. n/t