It'll come as no surprise that allegations have surfaced that Dick Syron, the now-embattled boss of Freddie Mac, ignored warnings from risk managers and underlings to tighten up the mortgage giant's balance sheet and cut risk as far back as 2004.

According to this mornings New York Times, Syron's defense is that—as he collected $38 million in compensation since 2003—he was under pressure from competing interests to keep the American homeownership juggernaut rolling. Now that the housing crisis has rolled over his company and a good portion of U.S. homeowners, that protest rings hollow.

The executives around Freddie (and its dysfunctional sister, Fannie Mae) says Syron turned a blind eye to the company's deteriorating lending standards and kept snapping up portfolios of risky loans.

What is shocking is that both Syron and his counterpart at Fannie, Daniel Mudd, say they had it all covered and that only a precipitous decline in the U.S. housing market could've hurt them.

What exactly, one might ask, did they expect after a cheap-money housing rally that lasted for the past decade? A soft landing. They should at least be honest that they knew they'd be bailed out and shot the moon.

Most appalling, however, is Syron's self-interested take on a collapse that's crippled the housing market. "If I had better foresight, maybe I could have improved things a little bit. But, frankly, if I had perfect foresight, I would never have taken this job in the first place."

Hmmm. Maybe, with perfect hindsight, shareholders (or maybe even taxpayers) will sue to get some of that $38 million back.