McCain, Bernanke: 'Not overly pleased'

by Mark Silva

The stunning news about the American economy delivered in the private session that Federal Reserve Chairman Ben Bernanke and Treasury Secretary Henry Paulson held with congressional leaders on Capitol Hill two weeks ago today has been described in a number of ways - "the air came out of the room... chilling... frightening.''

As Sen. Chuck Schumer and others have told the tale, Bernanke told the leaders of the House and Senate, basically, that the arteries of the nation's economy are clogged and if the government doesn't intervent the economy will suffer a "heart attack.''

And, it is largely on the storm warning that Bernanke and Paulson delivered two weeks ago that Democratic leaders have aligned with the Bush White House in a rush to approve an unprecedented government intervention: A $700-billion bailout, or as leaders would now have it, rescue, of the nations financial institutions to clear those arteries.

Yet at least one of the players in this economic drama may be falling out of favor with one of the candidates who hopes to succeed Bush in the White House: Sen. John McCain, who has called for the firing of Securities and Exchange Commission Chairman Chris Cox, also voiced some reserved criticism today for Fed Chairman Bernanke.

"I'm not overall pleased with his performance,'' McCain said of Bernanke today during an interview on MSNBC's Morning Joe, "I think it's a little bit different from the person, the individual specifically assigned to regulate. And Chris Cox is a fine and honorable man, don't get me wrong. But when the captain is asleep in the cabin and the ship runs aground, it's the captain that's still responsible.''

That "not overall pleased'' rating of the Fed chairman is a far cry from the faith that McCain placed in Bernanke's predecessor, Alan Greenspan. When McCain ran for president in 2000, he suggested keeping Greenspan at the Fed forever. And more recently, he suggested putting the ex-Fed chairman in charge of a sweeping overhaul of the nation's tax codes.

"If he's alive or dead it doesn't matter. If he's dead, just prop him up and put some dark glasses on him like, like 'Weekend at Bernie's,'" McCain joked in October, campaigning in South Carolina with a line that he had used for Greenspan eight years before. "Let's get the best minds in America together and fix this tax code."

Should McCain win election, he'll face some fence-mending with the Fed chairman (pictured above, testifying before Congress, with Paulson behind him, in an AP photo by Manuel Balce Ceneta)