Ben From Main Street

As the White House and Congress turn A.I.G. into a “Great Recession” piñata up the heat on A.I.G., people are running every which way to avoid the taint of Wall Street. A brilliant example is this scene from Sunday’s 60 Minutes.

Not only did Bernanke offer up the first interview with a sitting Fed Chairman in 20 years, he and CBS dragged out to his childhood home in S. Carolina, lost the ties, then pulled up on a public bench outside the spot where his family opened a drugstore in 1941 on, get this, W. Main Street. Then, for good measure, he and correspondent Pelley meandered out to Ben’s childhood home … which had just gone into foreclosure.

I guess we (and our PR people) are all in this together.

The Chairman – part 2 (CBS)

(image: CBS via A.P. Dillon, S.C., March 7, 2009)