Not the least remarkable thing about the Fed’s crisis response was its politics, or rather the lack of explicit political legitimation. The emergency liquidity provision to the international economy by the Fed between 2007 and 2009 was shrouded in as much obscurity as possible. In July 2009, when Bernanke was challenged by campaigning Democratic congressman Alan Grayson of Florida to explain “who got” the swap line money, the chairman of the Fed could reply “I don’t know.”
