HUD says that its newly-minted FHASecure program "has helped 33,000 homeowners prevent foreclosure in three months."

You might think that's great news. After all, President Bush said the FHASecure program "will allow American homeowners who have got good credit history but cannot afford their current payments to refinance into FHA-insured mortgages."

HUD, however, has redefined the mission. It now says that its FHASecure information has been "modified to reflect that the term FHASecure applies to all conventional to FHA refinance transactions. The previous edition of FAQs indicated that only those borrowers who were delinquent due to the reset of their non-FHA ARMs were eligible for FHASecure, causing confusion in the industry."

Nonsense. Was the President confused? Was the original HUD material incoherent? Was HUD Secretary Alphonso Jackson mixed-up when he testified before Congress that the FHASecure program was for "borrowers who are otherwise creditworthy, but have recently become delinquent on their mortgages as their teaser rates reset."

Here's the real problem: The FHASecure program is failing. HUD's own figures plainly show that in December only 249 delinquent conventional mortgages were refinanced with FHA loans. What does a bureaucracy do when it's off-target? It redefines the problem. It makes up new definitions. It says there's been confusion.

What HUD ought to say is that "we can do better. It's early in the program, it takes time to get such a massive effort underway and we'll do more to reach families facing foreclosure."

Everyone understands that no single program can resolve the foreclosure meltdown and that HUD has a difficult task. Everyone wants HUD to succeed because it would be good for the country. That's fair -- and there's no "confusion" about it.