Alan Greenspan is the least-quotable important person in Washington. I say this with some authority: For six years, I’ve written the “For the Record” column in NRODT, which requires scanning the news for interesting facts and provocative statements. Greenspan makes headlines whenever he speaks on tax and budget matters, but I’ve found it extremely difficult over the years to identify pithy excerpts from this comments. Check out this NYT story on his comments yesterday about Social Security, for instance: There’s almost nothing usable in it. The first quote is a horrible mouthful, apparently placed where it is because the writer felt he had to quote something. Normally, reporters don’t quote Greenspan so much as interpret what he said. I remember the speech Greenspan gave at the annual AEI dinner a few years ago: a real snoozer. I was sitting next to the late Wilcomb Washburn, who leaned over to me and said, “This is why they call economics the dismal science.” The next day, Greenspan was once more in the news: He had in fact delivered his semi-famous “irrational exuberance” speech–and virtually the only people to notice were the financial press corps. The man needs a speechwriter!