Chuck Schumer decided to "come out publicly and criticize the Office of Thrift Supervision in their handling of what seemed to be an impending bank failure.  Guess what causes a bank run?  Publicity about an impending failure...  From the wikipedia article on Schumer:

In July, 2008, the director of the Office of Thrift Supervision, John Reich, blamed the failure of savings and loan and mortgage originator IndyMac on comments made in late June by Schumer, who sent a publicized letter to the regulator raising concerns about the bank's solvency. Schumer wrote that he was "concerned that IndyMac's financial deterioration poses significant risks to both taxpayers and borrowers and that the regulatory community may not be prepared to take measures that would help prevent the collapse of IndyMac." In the following 11 days, panicked depositors withdrew a total of $1.3 billion in mostly insured funds.Reich said Schumer gave the bank a "heart attack" and opined, "Would the institution have failed without the deposit run? We'll never know the answer to that question"

 So of course the failure of IndyMac has helped to exacerbate the Fanny/Freddie crisis.  One thing people, especially politicians regulators have to realize is that every word that comes out of their mouths during a financial crisis could cause a problem to explode.  Schumer is a publicity hound and who knows how many people lost a substantial amount of their retirement or life savings because he had to weigh in publicly about this.  I hope this issue doesn't come back to haunt Democrats in November.  It may be time to vote this guy out of office in 2010.  He may be a shill for Wall Street, but he displays an amazing lack of understanding about financial issues.