Nothing really happened. Instead some big shot said something and the media trumpets it as though something happened. The Greenspan Says mode of journalism has had a noxious effect upon Washington, a city that has plenty such effects already. It turns the front pages into a spin fest, and encourages the entire city to compete for room on that stage. If Greenspan can say, everyone else wants to say too.
People put more energy into contrived saying than into actually getting something done.
The corollary to this pathetic theater is the use of established authority as a substitute for truth. The journalistic standard becomes what a Martin Feldstein says about the economy, what a Norman Ornstein says about Congress, instead of what is true about these. Among other things, authority journalism keeps reporting stuck firmly in the conceptual status quo. If truth is what conventional authorities say, then there's never room for a new idea or an unconventional truth - which is why such ideas always get banished to the journalistic margins. Give the authorities, experts and opinionizers their own page.