Fed Chairman Ben Bernanke's grilling by a House panel today left him unsinged, especially because of the dumb-ass statements spouting from various House members. A Dow Jones story headlined with "Lawmakers Attack Fed For Being 'Shrouded In Secrecy'" sums it up well. (Live blog by the NYT here.)

The Fed is secretive? Well, yeah. I'm pretty unhappy that the sun rises in the east, too. But that's what it does, that's how it functions, that's reality, and in the Fed's case, some of that secrecy is essential when setting monetary policy -- and that's why the Fed should never be given any more regulatory authority than it has. At least Dennis Kucinich gets it.

It was New York's own Edolphus Towns, the new chair of House Oversight and Government Reform, who kept complaining, according to reports, that the Fed is "shrouded in secrecy." What a waste of time this hearing is.

Ed Towns is a very poor replacement for Henry Waxman, who kicked himself upstairs to chair House Energy and Commerce. Waxman was a tiger as the Gov't Reform chair. Towns is toothless and clueless. He's not even very good at being a ringmaster for these show-and-tell trials of administration officials.