Greenspan's Oily Explanation

The exalted former Fed Chairman is sounding like a Mafia don these days explaining whether or not he ordered a hit on Saddam Hussein.

After writing in his memoirs that "the Iraq War is largely about oil," he is backpedaling. "I was not saying that that's the administration's motive," Greenspan said in an interview, "I'm just saying that if somebody asked me, 'Are we fortunate in taking out Saddam?' I would say it was essential."

Greenspan is maintaining his deniability by explaining that he never discussed the subject with Bush or Cheney but talked to White House officials, one of whom responded, "Well, unfortunately, we can't talk about oil."

To think that Greenspan would have had to spell out his position to two former Texas oil men with a Soprano-like “I want him dead” stretches the imagination, but it’s good to know that the code of omerta is still being observed at the highest levels.

Worst Movie Ever

In 1949, I was almost thrown out of a theater for fits of laughter while watching the drama of an incorruptible architect who blows up a housing project because someone added gingerbread to his design.

The movie was “The Fountainhead,” based on an Ayn Rand novel with a script by the author, that set new records for pretentious dialogue and pompous self-assertion.

This comes to mind because Alan Greenspan, whose memoirs emerge tomorrow, was once a disciple of Rand’s Objectivism, prompting a New York Times article yesterday under the heading, “Ayn Rand’s Literature of Capitalism.”

Over half a century, the philosophy that was heartily derided by both the left and right has become an inspiration for those who need justification for extreme selfishness and looking down at the rest of humanity as “looters” and “moochers.” Money, according to the Rand scripture in the turgid 1200-page novel, “Atlas Shrugged,” is the root of all good.

Among Rand’s moneyed admirers are Angelina Jolie and Brad Pitt, who have been threatening for years to make a movie of “Atlas Shrugged.”

If they ever do, it could wrest the crown for awfulness from “The Fountainhead,” which can still be seen, usually in the dead of night, on Turner Classic Movies. Those who doubt that it deserves the title can judge for themselves this Wednesday at 1:45 AM.

Greenspan and Groucho

In his complex commentaries, the former Fed chairman always seemed the ultimate anti-Groucho, immune to pith and irony.

But ironies abound. Even as Alan Greenspan sums up his public life, news of the book itself reflects a central lesson from it--the difficulty of controlling events in a free-enterprise society.

The New York Times was given an exclusive first look to report on publication date, Monday. But the Wall Street Journal bought a copy, published excerpts last night, and other news organizations followed.

The big news, according to the Journal, is Greenspan’s assertion that “the party to which he has belonged all his life deserved to lose power last year for forsaking its small-government principles.”

“They swapped principle for power,” the Times quotes him as writing. “They ended up with neither. They deserved to lose.”

In coming days, there will be debate over Greenspan’s role in promoting the housing bubble and his apparent approval of sub-prime lending, which has now led to a credit disaster, as well as other facets of his management of the Fed under four presidents.

In the media blitz next week to push his book, Greenspan may want to revert to his show-business roots as a saxophone player and give interviewers a few of Groucho’s cryptic one-liners. Otherwise they won’t understand his explanations any more than they did when what he said really mattered.