The Occasional Observer

On substance, I was cheering (and if you guys follow me on Twitter, arguing with the Perry-haters) at Perry's anti-Fed commentary. On tone, I agree he was too strident. The Wall Street Journal did a good job looking at both aspects of Perry's comments, and determining that, on balance, he gets it. In a way that Romney, Obama, and even W didn't.

It's worth reading the whole article here.

"The media trope of the week is that Mr. Perry is George W. Bush only more so, but he clearly isn't the same on monetary policy. Mr. Bush, who first appointed Mr. Bernanke, was an easy-money, weak-dollar President. He and his former economic advisers still don't understand how Alan Greenspan's policies at the Fed contributed to the credit and housing manias that led to the financial meltdown that caused the GOP's political undoing in 2008.

Mr. Perry seems to appreciate that the Federal Reserve can't conjure prosperity from the monetary printing presses. His articulation needs some work, but we hope the Texan doesn't let media and other criticism deter him from pursuing the argument...

Merely by raising the Fed as a subject, Mr. Perry has sent a political signal to the folks at the Eccles Building to tread carefully as they conduct monetary policy in the coming months..."

To put the bolded in other terms, terms I may or may not have tweeted the night Perry's supposed "gaffe" hit the wires, he delivered "a shot across the bow" of the Fed. Well done, Governor.