GOP Hopeful Rick Perry Goes After Ben Bernanke

Let the circus begin... GOP candidate Rick Perry denounces the money printing ways of The Bernank.

• The White House denounced Republican presidential candidate Rick Perry on Tuesday for his threatening remarks toward the head of the U.S. Federal Reserve that represented some of the most inflammatory rhetoric of the 2012 election campaign.
• Campaigning in Iowa on Monday, the Texas governor said he would consider it "treasonous" if Fed Chairman Ben Bernanke "prints more money between now and the election" in November 2012 -- a fresh sign of the political heat the central bank faces as it tries to right the stumbling U.S. economy.
• "If this guy prints more money between now and the election, I don't know what y'all will do to him in Iowa, but we would treat him pretty ugly down in Texas," Perry said to laughter from supporters in Iowa. "Printing more money to play politics at this particular time in American history is almost treacherous, treasonous in my opinion," he said.
• The White House responded by saying it is important for the Fed to remain independent, and jabbed back at Perry, who on Saturday entered the race for the Republican nomination to face Democratic President Barack Obama. Perry is already considered one of the strongest candidates for the Republican nomination. "I certainly think threatening the Fed chairman is not a good idea," White House spokesman Jay Carney said.
• Perry, a favorite of the conservative Tea Party movement, may have been trying to tap into the anti-Fed sentiment of some of the most right-leaning Republican voters, who deeply distrust the unelected, but powerful, officials of the central bank.
• While investors chalked up Perry's comments to the campaign season, they said criticism of the Fed and threats to its political independence could multiply if the economy sours even more and the central bank takes further action to spur growth.
• "When you say those things in the Lone Star State (Texas), you look colorful. When you say these things on a national stage ... it's going to come back and get you," said Ford O'Connell, an advisor on Republican John McCain's 2008 presidential campaign. "You've got to be more like James Bond and less like Rambo," he said.