I guess I'm a little confused...
I read up on the Keating 5 scandal, as I was unaware of it. Basically McCain (among with 4 other Democrats) were given substantial campaign donations, and in return they encouraged the FHLBB to back off on investigating Lincoln Savings and their improper investment practices. It's maybe a small part of a larger problem, but not the actual issue we're discussing.
The federal gov't did indeed spur the collapse by backing GSE's and encouraging risky loans. This is indisputable. Loans were not so easy to come by when private entities risked total collapse if their risky investments didn't pan out.
There's a nice video where Frank, Obama, and others chastised certain lawmakers (including mccain) who were sounding the alarms of this practice. I just did a quick vid search and found this, but there's some better one's out there.
You are correct, though. We are in the midst of another bubble. Where I live, I rented a decent ~500/600sqft apartment for about $800/mo 5yrs ago. That same apartment is 1,400/mo right now. The housing prices have increased at the same rate. Another correction is coming, and this one may actually be worse than 08...