Speaker Nancy Pelosi (D-Calif.) blasted President Bush on Tuesday for mismanaging the nation’s financial markets and charged GOP presidential nominee Sen. John McCain (Ariz.) with making comments “either through ignorance or just not caring” about the economy.

The spate of Wall Street bailouts and bankruptcies can be directly linked to “the poor policies and mismanagement” of the Bush administration, which chose not to enforce government oversight of the financial sector, Pelosi said.

“Plain and simply, George Bush is a very poor manager,” Pelosi said.

The Speaker questioned how McCain could say Monday that the economy is fundamentally sound when, that same day, the stock market went down 500 points.

“Is it sound when the candidate for president of the United States, either through ignorance or just not caring, says that the reason that these financial institutions are falling is because of overregulation by the Democrats in Congress, when the exact opposite is true?” Pelosi asked.

“He should know that. He probably does, and you wonder why he would say something opposite of the truth to the American people,” she said.

Pelosi made her remarks shortly after emerging from a meeting with Treasury Secretary Henry Paulson, who she said gave her an update “on the fragility of our financial institutions.”

Pelosi said she has asked House Financial Services Chairman Barney Frank (D-Mass.) and House Oversight and Government Reform Chairman Henry Waxman (D-Calif.) to hold hearings soon on the topic of financial market regulation.