It wasn't as ugly as it could have been for former Federal Reserve Chair Alan Greenspan as he testified before a House committee on Thursday about the world financial crisis.  "Were you wrong?" asked the panel chairman?

"Well, partially," said Greenspan, who joined the chorus of finger pointing by members of Congress looking into what happened before Wall Street started going belly up.

Greenspan personally slapped the banking industry for issuing a mountain of risky mortgage loans, loans he says that they should have known were not good business practice.

The result he labeled a "credit tsunami," which is clearly swamping the world's economies.

"I cannot see how we can avoid a significant rise in layoffs and unemployment," said Greenspan.

Members of both parties badgered the 82 year old former Fed chief, who held his ground and maintained his familiar near-monotone voice, even while describing the carnage in the financial sector.

"It turned out to be much broader than anything I could have imagined," Greenspan admitted.

Luckily for Greenspan, he wasn't the CEO of some big Wall Street firm, so while lawmakers believe he should have done a better job anticipating the troubles, he was mostly spared the verbal indignities that have been reserved for some other poor CEO slobs.

Republicans on the committee again used the cameras in the hearing room to rip Democrats over the lack of questions on mortgage giants Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac.

Basically, the GOP argues Fannie and Freddie wrongly expanded their loan portfolios to people less able to pay because of urgings by Democrats in the Congress and the Clinton Administration.

A hearing is set for late November on the issue.

"We're sort of tip toeing around the tulips," said an aggravated Rep. John Mica of Florida, who mockingly asked Greenspan and others why a hearing would be scheduled for November 20 instead of say, next week.

"Do you know what comes before November 20?" Mica asked with more than a hint of sarcasm in his voice.

"November 19th?" asked former Bush Treasury Secretary John Snow with a big smile.  While that drew laughter from the audience in the hearing room, it was no laughing matter for Mica and others, who are on a mission to prove that Democrats caused the Wall Street debacle.

Democrats meanwhile are on a mission to prove that the Bush Administration and all of their Wall Street cronies deserve all the blame.

The four hour hearing didn't ruin Greenspan's reputation by any means, but he wasn't treated like the Economic Oracle of Old.

In the end though, there's a lot more blame in this nation's capital than just one person.

"I have met the enemy," said Rep. Chris Shays, "and it is all of us."