Who is Speaking Here?

So one or another of the NRO's various flying monkeys quotes the NYTimes:

Fannie and Freddie have increased their repurchase demands on lenders over the past year, but banks are sure to resist large repurchases, setting up more clashes and disruption… Freddie Mac and the Fed should push their claims hard.

And concludes that

What the Times doesn’t seem understand is that every mortgage a bank buys back is more toxic debt on their balance sheets, which means more capital tied up, unable to be lent. And that is really bad for the economy. Banks are already holding on to some $1.5 trillion more reserve cash than in normal times. Getting those dollars into the economy would be the single best way to end the recession (something the Fed has failed to do with its misguided short-term thinking).

From the NYTimes Editorial

Fannie and Freddie have increased their repurchase demands on lenders over the past year, but banks are sure to resist large repurchases, setting up more clashes and disruption.

Bank of America has said it does not believe it is at fault for the loans’ poor performance. Freddie Mac and the Fed should push their claims hard.

The Obama administration needs to ensure that the taxpayers’ interests come first. Until now, the White House has focused far more energy on shoring up the banks — a stance that may have made sense in the thick of the financial crisis but is increasingly suspect now.

In the NRO critique

Banks should buy back any mortgages required according to the normal system and established contractual terms.

So, if the NYT argues that Fannie, Freddie, and the Fed ought vigorously pursue the normal system and force banks to buy back any mortgages required its wrong but should, per the NRO critique, the pursuit of the normal system require banks to buy back any mortgages why that would be okay.

See the problem?

And also, I have no idea if the NRO flying monkey is correct on the economic impact of forced repurchase of badly, if not illegally, done loans and neither, to be frank, does the flying monkey. However, the point of the NYT editorial isn't economic merits but rather moral culpability and political expediency, ayna?