Greenspan opens, shuts piehole

Former Fed chairman Alan Jewspan Greenspan is in the news lately for suffering an acute case of BDS, claiming the Iraq War was for oil. Now he's distancing himself. WaPo:

Greenspan, who was the country's top voice on monetary policy at the time Bush decided to go to war in Iraq, has refrained from extensive public comment on it until now, but he made the striking comment in a new memoir out today that "the Iraq War is largely about oil." In the interview, he clarified that sentence in his 531-page book, saying that while securing global oil supplies was "not the administration's motive," he had presented the White House with the case for why removing Hussein was important for the global economy.

"I was not saying that that's the administration's motive," Greenspan said in an interview Saturday, "I'm just saying that if somebody asked me, 'Are we fortunate in taking out Saddam?' I would say it was essential."

He said that in his discussions with President Bush and Vice President Cheney, "I have never heard them basically say, 'We've got to protect the oil supplies of the world,' but that would have been my motive." Greenspan said that he made his economic argument to White House officials and that one lower-level official, whom he declined to identify, told him, "Well, unfortunately, we can't talk about oil." Asked if he had made his point to Cheney specifically, Greenspan said yes, then added, "I talked to everybody about that."

It kind of makes one wonder why he would write in his book that oil was the motivation for the war (and that's a great justification for armed conflict, by the way). Then we look at what else Greenspan has been saying, and it all comes together. Newsweek:

With the next presidential election imminent, Newsweek asks who he would want to win: "Is one of the choices leaving the office open?" Greenspan says. When asked about his view on Hillary Clinton for president he says, "Very smart. She is probably everything that everybody says about her. She wouldn't be a bad president, but she won't attack the issues which really require coming to grips with during the campaign. The absolute blindness of candidates to the obvious issue of Medicare's problems is just truly discouraging to me," Greenspan says.

Thinking Hillarious Clinton "wouldn't be a bad president" makes me wonder how the US avoided countless recessions over Greenspan's tenure. Luck, I suppose. Let's hope Bernanke turns out to be a better man.