Former Federal Reserve Chairman Alan Greenspan, The Age of Turbulence: Adventures in a New World, has come off as a “hit piece” against Republicans if you’re watching the news and Sunday talk shows. Key elements of Greenspan’s book were parsed, and then spun.

Iraq War

Whatever their publicized angst over Saddam Hussein’s “weapons of mass destruction,” American and British authorities were also concerned about violence in an area that harbors [so much oil]. I am saddened that it is politically inconvenient to acknowledge what everyone knows: the Iraq war is largely about oil.

Interest Rates and Sub-Prime Mortgages

Our hope was to raise mortgage rates to levels that would defuse the boom in housing, which by then was producing an unwelcome froth.

[T]he benefits of broadened home ownership are worth the risk. Protection of property rights, so critical to a market economy, requires a critical mass of owners to sustain political support.

These two comments alone will be the chorus for Democrat sound bites and campaign bloviating. Further, Greenspan’s endorsement of the “Clinton economy” is an indirect endorsement of Hillary Clinton.

A fellow information hound [with] a consistent, disciplined focus on long-term economic growth.

We remain steadfast that the economic successes of the 90s were due primarily to the enormous increase and success of entrepreneur’s and the information, technology boom. Too much credit to any politicians has already been misappropriated and not enough credit has been given to small business and technological growth.

The Fed’s easy money policies helped cause the housing bubble and sub-prime crisis because of the mistakes that the Fed made in Chairman Greenspan’s final years.

The second round of Bush tax cuts had passed and GDP growth clocked in at 7.2% on an annual basis (later revised to 7.5%). The Wall Street Journal declares:

The Fed nonetheless maintained negative real interest rates for many more months to come. This has proven to be the great policy blunder of Mr. Greenspan’s tenure, with ramifications that are making life difficult for Mr. Bernanke today.

The housing recession has caused the overall economy to slow, and recession worries are rampant.

Democrats Beware

Mr. Greenspan told CBS’s “60 Minutes” that Democratic presidential candidate Hillary Clinton is “unquestionably capable” and “very smart,” but, still, his “tendency would be to vote Republican.”

In an interview with The Wall Street Journal, Greenspan said he isn’t sure how he will vote.

“I doubt if I would vote Democrat,” he said. “I just may not vote. At the moment it’s extremely hard to say.”

Truth Serum

“I’m saddened by the whole political process, and it’s not an accident that Republicans deserved to lose in 2006 — it wasn’t that the Democrats deserved to win,” he said.

“When it came time to rule, all of a sudden their ratings collapsed, and the reason they collapsed is they’re just as negative as the Republicans.”

“I was brought up in the Republican Party of [Barry] Goldwater. He was for fiscal restraint and for deregulation, for open markets, for trade,” Mr. Greenspan said in the interview.

“Social issues were not a critical factor. The Republican Party, which ruled the House, the Senate and the presidency, I no longer recognize. It’s fundamentally been focusing on how to maintain political power, and my question is, for what purpose?”

Mr. Greenspan answered the question in his question – Political Power!

For Oil or Not – Displacing Saddam Hussein

Mr. Greenspan says the Iraq was because of oil but contends he was in favor of disposing the dictator.

He says he felt “getting Saddam out of there was very important,” not because of weapons of mass destruction, but because he was convinced the Iraqi dictator wanted to control the Strait of Hormuz, through which a sizable portion of the world’s oil passes. That would enable him to threaten the U.S. and its allies.

The Democrats want to use Greenspan’s suggestion of “war for oil” but conveniently leave out specific reasoning for getting rid of Hussein.

Secretary of Defense Robert Gates retorted Greenspan’s statement that “the Iraq war is largely about oil.”

“Well, I have a lot of respect for Mr. Greenspan. I’ve known him a long time and I disagree with that. I wasn’t here for the decision-making process that initiated it, that started the war. I know the same allegation was made about the Gulf War in 1991 and I just don’t believe it’s true.”

“Well, I think that it’s really about stability in the Gulf. It’s about rogue regimes trying to develop weapons of mass destruction. It’s about aggressive dictators. After all, Saddam Hussein launched wars against several of his neighbors. He was trying to develop weapons of mass destruction, certainly when we went in, in 1991. … So I think what we were going after was an aggressive dictator who was a destabilizing force in the entire region.”

White House spokesman Tony Fratto provided an even less favorable review of Greenspan’s “war for oil” review.

“That sounds like Georgetown cocktail party analysis. The reasons we went to Iraq are well understood and had to do with [weapons of mass destruction], enforcing U.N. sanctions. To the extent that oil has anything to do with our engagement in Iraq today, it is the danger that al Qaeda could obtain control of oil assets and use them to threaten our interests.”

Republicans better clean up their party quickly, become aggressive and understand that Greenspan’s new book, The Age of Turbulence: Adventures in a New World, will become part of the Liberal play book for the upcoming elections. Allowing Liberals to become selective with Greenspan quotes will end the election for Republicans before it begins in earnest.