Meltdown: The Financial Crisis Inquiry Commission has kicked off its long-awaited hearings by promising a "thorough examination of the root causes" of the subprime scandal. But don't hold your breath.

If the witness list for Wednesday's curtain-raiser is any indication of the direction the panel's Democratic chairman plans to take the yearlong inquiry, we are deeply skeptical any roots will be exposed.

Wall Street honchos from Goldman Sachs and JPMorgan landed in the pillories first, instead of Washington executives from Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac, who have far more to answer for. Under pressure from Washington, the congressionally chartered and subsidized agencies gobbled up more than $1 trillion of the subprime and other toxic home loans that nearly KO'd the financial system.

Yet they're missing from the witness list for today's hearing.

Another giveaway is Wednesday's star policy witness, Mark Zandi — Democrat Barney Frank's favorite economist.

As head of the House banking panel, Frank protected Fannie and Freddie from oversight as it took on more and more bad loans in the name of Frank's hobbyhorse, "affordable lending."

In his 2008 book "Financial Shock," Zandi gave Frank a pass while laying blame at the feet of Wall Street CEOs. Frank, in turn, wrote a blurb for the dust jacket of Zandi's book and praised it during last year's hearings to craft tough new banking regulations.

Asked by a reporter whether he and Zandi, a registered Democrat, disagree about anything, Frank replied: "Not really."

Also appearing was an activist for the Center for Responsible Lending, which helped pressure Fannie and Freddie to ease credit rules by accusing the mortgage giants of racial discrimination.

It pushed for risky loans to uncreditworthy borrowers. Now that they've gone bust, the group accuses banks of "predatory lending."

Is the fix in? Time will tell. The commission plans to conduct hundreds of interviews over the next 11 months, culminating in a 9/11-style formal report due by December.

While commission chair Phil Angelides, a Democrat, pledges "a full and fair inquiry," the "bipartisan" 10-member panel is stacked with six Democrats who clearly have it in for Wall Street.

Angelides brings his own strong bias to the table. A former state treasurer of California, he's a big fan of the Community Reinvestment Act and other regulations that socialized mortgages and helped create the subprime market. His investigative team is stacked with California Democrat cronies, including a San Francisco trial lawyer who specializes in securities class-action suits.

Angelides grilled Goldman Sachs' Lloyd Blankfein about packaging subprime-embedded assets into bondlike securities and selling them to investors — even as Goldman Sachs was "shorting" the same securities. "It sounds like selling a car with faulty brakes and then buying an insurance policy" on the driver, Angelides scolded.

While Wall Street contributed to the feeding frenzy, Washington chummed the waters by giving Fannie and Freddie affordable-lending credits for subprime securitizations. Wall Street, in turn, marketed Fannie's and Freddie's mortgage-backed securities.

Citing Wall Street bonuses, which may face a 75% surtax, Angelides said: "There's a lot of anger." The anger is misplaced. The main culprits are in Washington, and they've gotten off scot-free.

The commission is supposedly modeled on the one that looked into 9/11. But it looks more like the Pecora Commission after the Great Depression. It put Wall Street on trial for market "excesses" and justified sweeping banking regulations that lasted for decades.

If the heads of Fannie and Freddie aren't subjected to equal grilling, the hearings will prove a farce. The American public will never get to the bottom of what wiped out trillions in household wealth. Worse, we may repeat the very mistakes that led to the crisis.