It’s not me; it’s them

Given the economic boom that, ummm, boomed under his watch as head of the Federal Reserve, Alan Greenspan would seem a little likely candidate for the "rehabilitated" circuit, in which one writes a book and -- just before it's published -- gives a series of interviews to high-profile media outlets to set the record straight.

For Greenspan, apparently figuring he'll get caught up in the blame game over the mortgage "crisis" and looming economic rece...well, you know, he makes clear that he's not "one of them" (Bushies).

He does so in an interesting way. While he's reaffirming that he's a Republican, he concludes that the Bush administration isn't. The tactic is clear as in his interview this morning in the New York Times. "It wasn't me, it was them."

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“I’m just very disappointed,” he said glumly, as he sat in his living room. “Smaller government, lower spending, lower taxes, less regulation — they had the resources to do it, they had the knowledge to do it, they had the political majorities to do it. And they didn’t.”

In the end, he said, “political control trumped policy, and they achieved neither political control nor policy.”

Mr. Greenspan, a lifelong Republican who presided over the longest sustained economic expansion in American history, sounded frustrated that neither a Republican White House nor Republican leaders in Congress were heeding his quiet pleas for greater fiscal discipline.

Oh, now he tells us.

So, one might expect the anti-Republicans, err.... anti-Bushies... will be using the Greenspan book to rally the troops around the Democrats (yes, I know, that's a warped conclusion, which makes the fact it's true even more warped).

Be careful, however. Paul Krugman sees a parallel. (Subscription required)

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.

And like enthusiastic war supporters who have started describing themselves as war critics now that the Iraq venture has gone wrong, Mr. Greenspan has started portraying himself as a critic of administration fiscal irresponsibility now that President Bush has become deeply unpopular and Democrats control Congress.

All of which is the daily reminder that in politics, dear voter, you're likely to be disappointed in your politician.