WELLESLEY - Barney Frank's two challengers teamed up Sunday to criticize the congressman for what they called his failure to properly regulate Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac, two mortgage lenders at the heart of the current financial crisis.

Frank emphatically defended himself, saying his efforts to regulate the industry were stymied by the twelve years Republicans controlled Congress. Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac came under fire earlier this year for backing bad mortgages that eventually lead to the current credit crisis that Congress acted to remedy with a several hundred billion dollar bailout proposal.

However, Earl Sholley, the Republican in the race, called Frank the "chief architect of the mortgage meltdown."

"All of this is well documented that Mr. Frank is the key player," Sholley said. "In fact, recently former President Bill Clinton made the statement on ABC News that when he was in the White House, he and the Republicans tried to reform Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac, and every time they attempted to do so, the Democrats blocked their efforts."

Sholley said Frank, the chairman of the House Financial Services Committee, was instrumental in Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac's bad loans.

"Mr. Frank, you and Fannie and Freddie encouraged and even forced lenders to give very bad mortgages because you knew Fannie and Freddie would buy them," he said. "You even allowed them to give mortgages to welfare recipients and illegal immigrants. People got greedy and the greed started at Fannie and Freddie...You became the affordable housing sugar daddy."

Susan Allen, the Democrat-cum-Independent in the race, was equally critical of Frank's role in the crisis and said the recently passed bailout does not do enough to protect taxpayers. Those taxpayers, she added, are shouldering the burden of bailing out investors that acted irresponsibly.

"Like Russian roulette, Mr. Frank allowed this game to be played and investors...snatched up discounted mortgages like hotcakes," she said. "Ordinary men and women, however...did not play in this game. But it is to these ordinary people that Mr. Frank has designated to pick up the tab of these failed investments."

Frank said the mortgage crisis began when Republicans controlled Congress. Those Republicans, he said, failed to regulate Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac even though he urged them to. "This is the first time I've been confused with Alan Greenspan, Newt Gingrich and Tom DeLay," Frank said, referring to the former Fed chairman, Republican House Speaker and Republican Majority Leader. "From 1995 to 2006, the Republicans controlled the House of Representatives, I was a member of the minority. I became the chairman in January of 2007. Since I became chairman, for the first time in recent times, a bill, a tough bill, was passed that regulates Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac."

Frank also noted that he "was for regulation before," but that the "Republicans wouldn't do it." Democrats have also passed a bill that limits CEO compensation, Frank noted.

"The suggestion is that somehow I stopped Newt Gingrich and Tom DeLay from doing what they wanted to do. Let me tell you this, if I could have stopped Gingrich and DeLay from doing what they wanted to do, they wouldn't have impeached Bill Clinton, they wouldn't have gone to war in Iraq, they wouldn't have weakened environmental rules, they wouldn't have interfered in the Terry Schiavo case. The argument is just bizarre. I was in the minority from 1995 to 2006. When did I become responsible?"