He was calm and he was cool, and he most certainly was not Alan Greenspan.Ben S. Bernanke, testifying to Congress for the first time since he succeeded Greenspan as chairman of the Federal Reserve, did three things on Wednesday that his predecessor usually did not: He gave short answers, generally free of twists and turns that could be interpreted in two or more ways.He simply refused to answer questions that would ensnare him in politically charged battles over tax cuts, spending cuts or the overhaul of Social Security. He said nothing that rattled the financial markets.In an upbeat, generally soothing assessment of the economy, Bernanke’s remarks on monetary policy suggested that the Fed might still have to raise interest rates one or two more times to ensure that inflation does not flare any higher. But he kept his options wide open, offering just as many reasons not to increase rates in the future as to raise them.Bernanke, a former professor at Princeton whose name is still unfamiliar to some members of Congress, barely broke a sweat in three hours of nonstop testimony that was broadcast live on C-Span and scrutinised by analysts around the world.But for all his insistence on remaining nonpartisan, and on staying out of the political warfare over fiscal policy, there was a clear hint of preferences in the questions he chose to answer versus those he chose not to answer. — NYT
