Ladies and gentlemen, I give you the man many GOP insiders think will be their next presidential nominee, inspiring confidence with his grasp of current events:
Wall Street may be intensely interested in just about every word ever uttered by Mr. Bernanke, the former Princeton economist and chairman of the White House Council of Economic Advisers who is President Bush's choice to succeed Alan Greenspan.
But in Washington, he is barely on some people's radar screens. Indeed, here is what Senator George Allen of Virginia, who is considering a bid for the Republican presidential nomination in 2008, said when asked his opinion of the Bernanke nomination.
"For what?"
Told that Mr. Bernanke was up for the Fed chairman's job, Mr. Allen hedged a little, said he had not been focused on it, and wondered aloud when the hearings would be. Told that the Senate Banking Committee hearings had concluded in November, the senator responded: "You mean I missed them all? I paid no attention to them."
Update 2/2: Apparently Allen overcame his ignorance about Bernanke -- Jim Bunning was the only senator who opposed the nominee during a voice vote on Tuesday.
Another classic (thanks to Al Kamen's In the Loop column):
Fox News anchor Bill Hemmer yesterday asked Sen. George Allen (R-Va.) about the "visible anger we saw on the face of Zawahiri " -- al Qaeda number two Ayman -- on the latest videotape. "And I was thinking about 20 years ago when he was on trial in Egypt, in that jail cell chanting and yelling inside that courtroom. What does that anger suggest to you, that we saw on that tape?"
Allen: "Well, I think the anger shows that he's angry."
(link: http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2006/01/31/AR2006013101441_pf.html )
Posted by: Rick | February 09, 2006 at 12:19 AM