On Sunday (July 26) Federal Reserve Bank chief Ben Bernanke sat down with Jim Lehrer of PBS's News Hour to defend recent bold actions of the central bank to shore the nation's financial system. Specifically, Congress and many Americans question the wisdom of engineering a $29 billion bailout of Bear Stearns (as competitor Lehman Brothers lay dying in a pool of its own red ink); the extension of over $2 trillion in loans and loan guarantees using who-knows-what as collateral; and a doubling of the monetary base.

And while those outside of the Fed are deeply concerned about these actions -- that is, concern for what they do know -- they are also troubled that there's likely a whole galaxy of information that they do not know; a black hole of Fed data, if you will. So, It's no wonder that Rep. Ron Paul's (R-TX) HR 1207, or colloquially the "Audit the Fed" bill, which seeks to allow Congress's watchdog, the Government Accountability Office (GAO) to audit the Fed, has garnered 276 cosponsors in the House.

Bernanke recoils at the thought of GAO rummaging through the Fed's garbage bin:

What people don't understand is that this bill would give the GAO, the GAO, the authority to audit monetary policy. And what does that mean? That means if the Federal Reserve decided a year from now that because of incipient inflation it was time to raise interest rates, that the Congress would say, ah, the GAO's going to audit that decision. It's going to subpoena your materials. It's going to demand information from members of the FOMC. it's going to evaluate your decision. It's going to report to Congress. I don't think that's consistent with independence....I don't think the American people want Congress running monetary policy. And I think that's very very critical for people to understand.

Congress running monetary policy? Scary as hell? You bet. And, that's the straw man with which Bernanke hopes to impede Fed transparency. Given present and past circumstances, Bernanke et. al. might, in fact, be making well-reasoned and necessary steps to keep the economy from totally collapsing. But, they might not be. Who knows? Not Congress, not the public, and not outside experts. Taking a look at the Fed's books and processes would go a long way to reassuring us that the bank's independence is well deserved and is steering the American economy on the right course.

For more coverage of Bernanke's PR blitz, read CBS News's Econwatch's excellent coverage here. See also: The Wall Street Journal and the New York Times.