In that sense, the president has evolved. It shows that he’s no longer blaming just loan brokers for the mortgage mess and is recognizing that retail loan officers (at Ameriquest, Household, Associates) were just as guilty.

Unless there was more verbage than what you stated, I think you're putting too much meaning into whether "loan officer" or "loan broker" was used.

To 99% of the US those are interchangable terms.
ie. "my neighbor is a loan broker at BofA" means the same as "my neighbor is a loan officer at BofA".