From the WaPo transcript of last night's GOP debates:
MR. GINGRICH: ...virtually every American has a reason to be angry. I think virtually every American has a reason to be worried. I think the people who are protesting on Wall Street break into two groups: one is left-wing agitators who would be happy to show up next week on any other topic, and the other is sincere middle-class people who, frankly, are very close to the tea party people in actually caring. You can tell which group is which.
The people who are decent and responsible citizens pick up after themselves. The people who are just out there as activists trash the place and walk off and are proud of having trashed it. So let's draw that distinction.
If they want to really change things, the first person to fire is Bernanke, who is a disastrous chairman of the Federal Reserve. The second person to fire is Geithner. The fact is, in both the Bush and the Obama administrations, the fix has been in, and I think it's perfectly reasonable for people to be angry. But let's be clear who put the fix in. The fix was put in by the federal government. And if you want to put people in jail, I want to second what Michele said: You ought to start with Barney Frank and Chris Dodd. And let's look at the politicians who created the environment, the politicians who profited from the environment, and the politicians who put this country in trouble.
MR. ROSE: Clearly, you're not saying they should go to jail.
MR. GINGRICH: Well, in Chris Dodd's case, go back and look at the Countryside deals. In Barney Frank's case, go back and look at the lobbyists he was close to at -- at the -- at Freddie Mac. All I'm saying is, everybody --
MS. TUMULTY: So if you were in the White --
MR. GINGRICH: -- everybody -- everybody in the media who wants to go after the business community ought to start by going after the politicians who have been at the heart of the sickness which is weakening this country, and ought to start with Bernanke, who has still not been exposed...MR. GINGRICH: I'm going to say one other thing. I'm going to repeat this: Bernanke has in secret spent hundreds of billions of dollars bailing out one group and not bailing out another group. I don't see anybody in the news media demanding the kind of transparency at the Fed that you would demand of every other aspect of the federal government.
And I think it is corrupt and it is wrong for one man to have that kind of secret power.
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