The deification of Ben Bernanke has begun.

All hail Bernanke!

Grand Pooh-Bah!

Kemo Sabe!

Great Bald Bwana!

We expect this sort of salutation from the political and bureaucratic classes gorging at the public trough.

Now, we get it in the alleged independent press.

The day the Federal Reserve was expected to deliver another cut in the discount rate — a cut to benefit the monopoly of its member banks — The Wall Street Journal published a piece on the Fed head titled, "Bernanke, in First Crisis, Rewrites Fed Playbook."

Derided in August as an ivory tower academic who, at the slightest market hiccup, was slow to pour taxpayer funds into the Wall Street bonus pool, the counterfeiter-in-chief is now being lauded as the Knute Rockne of central bankers.

He obliged the Journal and the Street by directing another scoring drive, by calling their play, by cutting the fed funds rate the day of the story.

The day before, the Commerce Department reported the economy grew 3.9 percent in the third quarter. Later that day, while humming a rhyme that ends with "pants on fire," our prodigal president said, "Here's an indication that it's strong," meaning the economy.

Beam him up, Scotty!

If the economy is strong, why did the Fed cut rates? Why did the Fed cut rates the month before?

If federales claim the economy is growing at 3.9 percent while understating inflation by 7 percent, as private economists contend and many bill-paying, grocery-shopping Americans can affirm, then the economy is contracting at 3.1 percent.

We're in depression.

Ask a car dealer, real estate broker or shoe salesman. Ask 446,726 homeowners in foreclosure in the third quarter, more than double the number a year ago. This is the same quarter in which the feds say the economy grew 3.9 percent.

Of course, they are lying. That's what the federal apparatchiks do.

They spy on citizens and call it a Patriot Act.

They occupy a country to block China's access to oil and say it's about freedom.

They push health-spending boondoggles to bleed family incomes and say it's for children.

They reject Americans' alarm at criminal trespass and lawless borders and say it's good for the country.

They push a Law of the Sea Treaty surrendering American sovereignty to the tribal despots of the United Nations and say it's for world peace.

And what about Americans?

Let them eat cake.

The Journal piece even called Bernanke's predecessor Alan Greenspan "larger than life." Who can dispute it? In his 18 years, five months and 21 days as Fed head, Greenspan debased the dollar by 44 percent. What cost $100 when Greenspan took office cost $177 when he left. The man's a legend.

Bernanke has proved his mettle on the team. When credit contracted because of the banks, and when our fearless bankers' knees were knocking, curled beneath their desks in delirious withdrawals from their credit binges, Dr. Bernanke filled his syringe and went to work.

In shot the money — our money — to juice the private banking cartel of the Federal Reserve. On Thursday alone, the Fed dumped $41 billion into the abyss of the cartel's financial racket, the biggest such panicked injection since September 2001.

What hath the Fed wrought?

Gold near $800. Oil near $100. The dollar index at an all-time low.

Here we go. Here come the backbreaking, family-wrecking, wealth-destroying higher prices of currency debasement via monetary inflation.

Another stunning performance of the centralized, progressive, fascist-model state economy.

Let us reject the motto — In the Fed We Trust — of America's money masters.

Bust the trust. Arrest them all. Put them on trial for embezzlement of the Treasury. It's a slam-dunk case.

Phil Lucas is executive editor of The News Herald in Panama City, Fla. Contact him at plucas@pcnh.com. To find out more about Lucas and read features by other Creators Syndicate writers and cartoonists, visit the Creators Syndicate website at www.creators.com.

COPYRIGHT 2007 CREATORS SYNDICATE, INC.