On President Obama’s difficulty getting Ben Bernanke confirmed:

This is a perfect example of an administration in disarray. The reappointment of Bernanke is one of the good decisions that Obama made. This is a guy who did save our economy in ‘08 and ‘09.
He made a lot of tactical errors, [but] on the big issue, the one issue — we had a mountain of private debt that was becoming insolvent. It was going to destroy our economy. He nationalized it, which was the only way to do it. He has taken a lot of hits, but that was the right decision. Obama is right in reappointing him.
The reason why you have got a lot of Democratic defectors on this [reappointment] — because after all, the Democrats have a huge majority, even now in the Senate and in the House — is that they watch the president after the Massachusetts disaster pivot and become a populist, you know, all that rhetoric about the banks . . . denouncing the fat cats on Wall Street.
And . . . the Democrats in the Senate are saying: I walked the plank on health care. I’m taking a hit on his agenda. If he is going to become a populist, I will become a populist also. The first target that walks into that room is the Fed chairman. That’s why he is under attack.
It would be a disaster in the middle of a crisis — as we still are — with uncertainty all over the world, if he were not re-nominated. It would be a huge hit on us and it would [cause] a huge drop in the stock market.

On the week that was:

You know, this is an amazing week. Massachusetts goes Republican, health care dies, and the Supreme Court unshackles the First Amendment. It’s the best week I have had since spring break in medical school — and I don’t even remember it.