That's when we knew you were pretending to understand...

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Several wars ago, I recall watching John Kenneth Galbraith on  Dick Cavett,  saying that if you had told  any reputable economist in 1968 that you could rising unemployment, inflation, falling profit margins and a war at the same time, they'd have laughed at you. In that regard, he found Nixon's administration to be definitely historical. They'd done the mathematically impossible.

Crusader AXE was driving home listening to NPR in his 1980 VW Scirroco when Reagan announced his tax cuts. I recall doing the math in my head and wondering how this would work. I have never worshipped at altar of Ronald Reagan. He appears to have been a nice, ineffectual guy in his personal life who had some really tenuous understanding of most things. He recognized that communism was the enemy, as it was, and beat it to death economically. His quips after being shot pale compared to Joe Theismann's comment after Lawrence Taylor pulverized his leg, "Honey, there goes my punting career." He was symbol of something; not sure what. However, despite the R-R-worship, the current crowd make him look like a cross between Teddy Roosevelt, Abraham Lincoln and Cecil B. DeMille. I can't imagine Nancy Reagan talking about going to Chppendales show with Jim Baker's wife and Anne Kirkpatrick.

So, being a prisoner of my race, gender, class and life, I tend to read columnists with some criteria. With male columnists, I pay attention to what they say, weigh it carefully, and then decide if I'd like to have a beer with them. If so, I read them regularly. With female columnists, I read what they say, see if it resonates, and decide if I'd like to sleep with and wake up with them and then have a cup of coffee. If yes, I read them regularly. I have never wanted to sleep, wake or drink coffee or beer with Peggy Noonan. However, her column about Greenspan is a classic in the "Say it ain't so, Joe..." genre and merits reading. 

In the book he fiercely opposes the Bush tax cuts. He feared the budget surpluses enjoyed in 2000 would be transformed into long-term deficits. He worried that entitlement spending would leave "a very large hole in future budgets." Not facing this was "a failure." He disdains the Great Pork Spree of the '00s. The unifying idea that governed Bush White House economic thinking -- "deficits don't matter" -- was, simply, wrong. Mr. Greenspan found it a "struggle" to accept that this is what the Republican Party had come to. Scrambling for political dominance became the party's great goal. "The reality was even uglier": They would spend and spend "to add a few more seats to the Republican majority."

This is all strongly, and clearly, stated.

But when the tax cuts, and the impact of spending, were being debated, Mr. Greenspan allowed his congressional testimony to be interpreted as supportive of the Bush plan. And he did this even though he had been warned in advance by those who'd seen his testimony that it would be seen as an endorsement of the tax plan.

Indeed his testimony -- airy vaporizing about long-term trends -- was quickly seized on by the White House and its congressional supporters as support for their approach. Mr. Greenspan describes himself -- literally, in an aside he seems to find witty -- as "shocked, shocked" that politics is going on in Washington, and his words are being twisted.

Paul Krugman has never worshipped at the Greenspan altar. Far from it -- I think he was somewhat amazed at the depths of big Al's admission of catastrophic intellectual pandering and hypocrisy, which is kind of interesting. You'd think that a guy who is involved so deeply in international economics, university politics and newspaper OP-ED gestalts wouldn't be amazed at simple cupidity and separation anxiety over loss of power, prestige and all the rest.

Suddenly, his greatest concern — the “emerging key fiscal policy need,” he told Congress — was to avert the threat that the federal government might actually pay off all its debt. To avoid this awful outcome, he advocated tax cuts. And the floodgates were opened. As it turns out, Mr. Greenspan’s fears that the federal government would quickly pay off its debt were, shall we say, exaggerated. And Mr. Greenspan has just published a book in which he castigates the Bush administration for its fiscal irresponsibility.

Well, I’m sorry, but that criticism comes six years late and a trillion dollars short.

Mr. Greenspan now says that he didn’t mean to give the Bush tax cuts a green light, and that he was surprised at the political reaction to his remarks. There were, indeed, rumors at the time — which Mr. Greenspan now says were true — that the Fed chairman was upset about the response to his initial statement. But the fact is that if Mr. Greenspan wasn’t intending to lend crucial support to the Bush tax cuts, he had ample opportunity to set the record straight when it could have made a difference...

And in 2004 he expressed support for making the Bush tax cuts permanent — remember, these are the tax cuts he now says he didn’t endorse — and argued that the budget should be balanced with cuts in entitlement spending, including Social Security benefits, instead. Of course, back in 2001 he specifically assured Congress that cutting taxes would not threaten Social Security.

In retrospect, Mr. Greenspan’s moral collapse in 2001 was a portent. It foreshadowed the way many people in the foreign policy community would put their critical faculties on hold and support the invasion of Iraq, despite ample evidence that it was a really bad idea.

Before AGI decides to redo the blog in earth tones, I use green as the color of money and the color of envy. Had Greenspan stayed true to his professional and ethical responsibility, we'd not be where we are, staring at the end of the American era. And, contrary to some of my brothers and blogosphere friends, Crusader AXE thinks that's a potentially catastrophic thing. Twitshit's intellectual bankruptcy combined with Mesmerist Dick's and the Brain without a Soul's antics aside, none of this would have been possible without Greenspan's blessing and support through 2006. Noonan is writing like IOZ on a good day, without the sexual tension and with sincere anger and grief...

Mr. Greenspan was reappointed for a three-year term by President Clinton in 2000. He allowed himself to be painted as a supporter of the Bush tax cuts in 2001. He was reappointed by President Bush in 2003. Mr. Bush is now deeply unpopular. Mr. Greenspan, retired and selling a book, has discovered Mr. Bush's deep flaws. The timing is all so convenient. One wouldn't suggest a quid pro quo in Mr. Greenspan's testimony and subsequent reappointment...the markets liked him Or until this week when he gave the impression his own personal long-term economic planning involves keeping bars of gold under the porch with a dog named Butch -- sorry, I mean highly fungible physical entities embodying real and symbolic value next to an exuberant canine.

So to suggest a quid pro quo would be vulgar. And in any case who could say? At that level, the game is played without words or even winks. It's played through feints, silences, symbols, vague words. Then a handshake and off we go...

Jerry Harvey of George Washington University and The Abilene Paradox wrote in one of his meditations that it is better to be raped than to be seduced, because seduction requires consent. Eric Shinseki is honored by people who would never have heard his name because he told the truth, was abused and vilified by Rumsfeld and Wolfowitz -- a definite endorsement of the quality of the General's integrity, judgment and character -- and ignored. Until history judges him, of course; so far, it's judging him highly. He was raped. Greenspan not only consented, he did a seductive dance to get his way...at a permanent cost to his credibility.

Oh, I'd sleep with Andrea Mitchell. Definitely. After reading Noonan's article, I'm reconsidering, at least as far as the coffee goes...