Man-Bites-Dog Story: A Politician Speaks the Truth

Testifying today before the House Financial Services Committee, Fed Chairman Ben Bernanke took some well-deserved flak for the Fed’s power-grasping attempt to gain even greater control over the nation’s financial institutions.

People who have progressed beyond Political Science 101 understand, of course, that congressional hearings are rarely anything more than propaganda theater. From time to time, however, the unfathomable human element bursts through the highly scripted limits, and someone blurts out the truth.

Such was evidently the case today when, according to an Associated Press report, Republican Congressman Spencer Bachus of Alabama declared:

“The Fed has made some big mistakes” . . . .  Letting the Fed become the financial supercop would be “just inviting a false sense of security” that would be shattered at taxpayers’ expense, he warned.

So, there you have it. In a topsy-turvy world, a world in which you have scarcely any guide to rely on, the one rule that has served us so magnificently in the past—the rule that if a politician is moving his mouth, he is lying—has been refuted. I remain confident, however, that this extraordinary event will prove to be nothing more than the exception that illustrates the rule.