Cracked Bells and Washed-out Horns
Alan Greaseball hasn't been taken out yet? - unbelievable! This guy probably has the goods on at least a couple dozen mob-wanna-be's who had to settle for "elected" politics over the last 20 years. And he was complicit in and/or supportive of some of the most ruinous fiscal policy choices in recent times, and hence a potential target in so many ways there also. Yet he's been "allowed" to publish a book, The Age of Turbulence. Go figure.
My admittedly limited research strongly supports the proposition that his new book is basically another desperate attempt to salvage some sort of one-toke-over-the-line history. I recently read Exhibit A, i.e., Center of the Storm, G. Tenet, at great pain to my reading pleasure and equanimity. The chance of slotting Greenspan's book into my already over-stretched schedule seems slight.
Unsurprisingly, the book title itself seems chosen to start the case for (largely undeserved) absolution. Turbulence, sure, but you were there Alan. It didn't just happen to you. You were a progenitor. You did a relatively decent job of being steady and a source of confidence for years. But truthfully - you overstayed and badly violated our trust by enthusiastically enabling george's outrageously regressive and deficit-exploding fiscal policies. I am still suspicious that you were in your last years in office subject to serious mental enfeeblement or even possibly dementia. There were plentiful indications.
Alan, have you sought help? Your last years did unconscionable wrong to your country. If you are still sentient enough to grasp that simple fact, professional aid seems essential. Not to mention proper absolution. You can't buy penance through this book.
Desperately grasping for some value from the old fool, I excerpt here from Noquarterusa:
For those still wondering why President George W. Bush and Vice President Dick Cheney sent our young men and women into Iraq, the secret is now “largely” out.
No, not from the lips of former secretary of state Colin Powell. It appears we shall have to wait until the disgraced general/diplomat draws nearer to meeting his maker before he gets concerned over anything more than the “blot” that Iraq has put on his reputation.
Rather, the uncommon candor comes from a highly respected Republican doyen, economist Alan Greenspan, chairman of the Federal Reserve from 1987 to 2006, whom the president has praised for his “wise policies and prudent judgment.” Sadly for Bush and Cheney, Greenspan decided to put prudence aside in his new book, The Age of Turbulence, and answer the most neuralgic issue of our times—why the United States invaded Iraq.
Greenspan writes:
“I am saddened that it is politically inconvenient to acknowledge what everyone knows: the Iraq war is largely about oil.”
Everyone knows? Would that it were so. But it’s hardly everyone. Sometimes I think it’s hardly anyone.
There are so many, still, who “can’t handle the truth,” and that is all too understandable. I have found it a wrenching experience to be forced to conclude that the America I love would deliberately launch what the Nuremburg Tribunal called the “supreme international crime”—a war of aggression—largely for oil. For those who are able to overcome the very common, instinctive denial, for those who can handle the truth, it really helps to turn off the Sunday football games early enough to catch up on what’s going on.
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Oil? Oil? It doesn't take a tin-hat to figure that out. Sadly, there is an embarrassingly large portion of our population that can still find the prospect that they might some day be drinking-a-beer-with-him and that he might come up with a "cute" nickname for them (insulting, if they paid attention) sufficient to play dumb to all facts.
I need to book-end that last with this from Ian Welsh, posting at FDL:
So Alan Greenspan has a new book coming out on Monday. And it says nasty things about the Bush administration. Welcome to the club Alan - the club of Bush enablers who write books once they aren’t in power, in a pathetic attempt to pretend they weren’t culpable in Bush’s mess. But back when it mattered, back when you were in charge of the Fed, when you were lionized as the Maestro… oh, back then, when you could have actually, I don’t know, oh, done something concrete to oppose Bush’s policies, did you? No, no you didn’t.
Let’s see what Uncle Alan is saying in his book, say about tax cuts…
Though Mr. Greenspan does not admit he made a mistake, he shows remorse about how Republicans jumped on his endorsement of the 2001 tax cuts to push through unconditional cuts without any safeguards against surprises. He recounts how Mr. Rubin and Senator Kent Conrad, Democrat of North Dakota, begged him to hold off on an endorsement because of how it would be perceived.
“It turned out that Conrad and Rubin were right,” he acknowledges glumly. He says Republican leaders in Congress made a grievous error in spending whatever it took to ensure a permanent Republican majority…
…Today, Mr. Greenspan is indignant and chagrined about his role in the Bush tax cuts. “I’d have given the same testimony if Al Gore had been president,” he writes, complaining that his words had been distorted by supporters and opponents of the cuts.
How precious is that. Take a look at the top chart - has the government ever reduced spending in recent history? Greenspan can’t claim economic illiteracy. He knew that. Yet he shilled for tax cuts anyway.
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I don't know how many friends Mr. G is going to be able to hope for when his time comes . . .
My admittedly limited research strongly supports the proposition that his new book is basically another desperate attempt to salvage some sort of one-toke-over-the-line history. I recently read Exhibit A, i.e., Center of the Storm, G. Tenet, at great pain to my reading pleasure and equanimity. The chance of slotting Greenspan's book into my already over-stretched schedule seems slight.
Unsurprisingly, the book title itself seems chosen to start the case for (largely undeserved) absolution. Turbulence, sure, but you were there Alan. It didn't just happen to you. You were a progenitor. You did a relatively decent job of being steady and a source of confidence for years. But truthfully - you overstayed and badly violated our trust by enthusiastically enabling george's outrageously regressive and deficit-exploding fiscal policies. I am still suspicious that you were in your last years in office subject to serious mental enfeeblement or even possibly dementia. There were plentiful indications.
Alan, have you sought help? Your last years did unconscionable wrong to your country. If you are still sentient enough to grasp that simple fact, professional aid seems essential. Not to mention proper absolution. You can't buy penance through this book.
Desperately grasping for some value from the old fool, I excerpt here from Noquarterusa:
For those still wondering why President George W. Bush and Vice President Dick Cheney sent our young men and women into Iraq, the secret is now “largely” out.
No, not from the lips of former secretary of state Colin Powell. It appears we shall have to wait until the disgraced general/diplomat draws nearer to meeting his maker before he gets concerned over anything more than the “blot” that Iraq has put on his reputation.
Rather, the uncommon candor comes from a highly respected Republican doyen, economist Alan Greenspan, chairman of the Federal Reserve from 1987 to 2006, whom the president has praised for his “wise policies and prudent judgment.” Sadly for Bush and Cheney, Greenspan decided to put prudence aside in his new book, The Age of Turbulence, and answer the most neuralgic issue of our times—why the United States invaded Iraq.
Greenspan writes:
“I am saddened that it is politically inconvenient to acknowledge what everyone knows: the Iraq war is largely about oil.”
Everyone knows? Would that it were so. But it’s hardly everyone. Sometimes I think it’s hardly anyone.
There are so many, still, who “can’t handle the truth,” and that is all too understandable. I have found it a wrenching experience to be forced to conclude that the America I love would deliberately launch what the Nuremburg Tribunal called the “supreme international crime”—a war of aggression—largely for oil. For those who are able to overcome the very common, instinctive denial, for those who can handle the truth, it really helps to turn off the Sunday football games early enough to catch up on what’s going on.
-clip-
Oil? Oil? It doesn't take a tin-hat to figure that out. Sadly, there is an embarrassingly large portion of our population that can still find the prospect that they might some day be drinking-a-beer-with-him and that he might come up with a "cute" nickname for them (insulting, if they paid attention) sufficient to play dumb to all facts.
I need to book-end that last with this from Ian Welsh, posting at FDL:
So Alan Greenspan has a new book coming out on Monday. And it says nasty things about the Bush administration. Welcome to the club Alan - the club of Bush enablers who write books once they aren’t in power, in a pathetic attempt to pretend they weren’t culpable in Bush’s mess. But back when it mattered, back when you were in charge of the Fed, when you were lionized as the Maestro… oh, back then, when you could have actually, I don’t know, oh, done something concrete to oppose Bush’s policies, did you? No, no you didn’t.
Let’s see what Uncle Alan is saying in his book, say about tax cuts…
Though Mr. Greenspan does not admit he made a mistake, he shows remorse about how Republicans jumped on his endorsement of the 2001 tax cuts to push through unconditional cuts without any safeguards against surprises. He recounts how Mr. Rubin and Senator Kent Conrad, Democrat of North Dakota, begged him to hold off on an endorsement because of how it would be perceived.
“It turned out that Conrad and Rubin were right,” he acknowledges glumly. He says Republican leaders in Congress made a grievous error in spending whatever it took to ensure a permanent Republican majority…
…Today, Mr. Greenspan is indignant and chagrined about his role in the Bush tax cuts. “I’d have given the same testimony if Al Gore had been president,” he writes, complaining that his words had been distorted by supporters and opponents of the cuts.
How precious is that. Take a look at the top chart - has the government ever reduced spending in recent history? Greenspan can’t claim economic illiteracy. He knew that. Yet he shilled for tax cuts anyway.
-clip-
I don't know how many friends Mr. G is going to be able to hope for when his time comes . . .
posted by Sir Gumbo at 10:59 PM
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