Policy by Obama, execution by Kafka.

• Author: Peters, Charles
• Position: TILTING at windmills - Barack Obama - Brief article

My wife recently received a letter from a friend who had been trying to get her mortgage modified under the Obama administration program to help those threatened with foreclosure. After five attempts to submit her information to the mortgage servicer she finally received an acknowledgment that her material had been received and it would take forty-five to sixty days to process. Then the great day arrived. Her application was approved! The only catch was that her monthly payment remained the same. When my wife's friend called to protest she was told a mistake had been made but, alas, she would still have to resubmit all her paperwork. When she had done just that, she was told the time limit had expired!

I found the story hard to believe, even though my wife swore her friend is a totally credible person--but then I found a story headlined "Judges' Frustration Grows With Mortgage Servicers" by John Collins Rudolf in the New York Times. The judge was frustrated...