Laundering Greenspan

The editor of The Economist is currently on NPR. Responding to a question from a listener about Alan Greenspan’s role in the Bush deficits, he deflected it by saying that Greenspan is just in charge of monetary policy, so it’s really on Bush, but perhaps could have used his “bully pulpit” more. The dishonesty here, of course, is implying that Greenspan has consistently opposed Bush’s fiscal policy but not loudly enough. Er, no. As the country’s Randian-in-chief is let out to pasture, let his profoundly embarrassing argument in 2001 that the possibility that the national debt would be paid off too quickly was a good reason for Bush’s unpaid-for upper-class tax cuts be mentioned as much as possible.