Nobel Prize winner "not qualified" to be on Federal Reserve Board of Governors?

Yes, that's right.  NOT QUALIFIED.  This according to Senator Richard Shelby (R-AL), who is holding up the nomination of Peter Diamond, MIT Economist, to the Federal Reserve Board of Governors.  Peter Diamond is on of three who are sharing the Nobel Prize for Economics this year, for their work on "how economic policy affects the job market," by understanding "the ways in which unemployment, job vacancies, and wages are affected by regulation and economic policy."  

But, according to today's article in The Washington Monthly and the ThinkProgress blog,...

"Five current governors of the Fed, only two, Mr. Bernanke and the vice chairman, Donald L. Kohn, are academic economists who specialize in monetary economics. The other three include a former community banker, a former Wall Street executive and a legal scholar." 

Also, one of the current Federal Reserve Board members who was appointed by President Bush, "has no advanced degree in economics and has never done any academic research in the field. Shelby never raised questions about his qualifications and didn't hesitate to support that nomination." 

Oh yeah.  Totally unqualified to be on the Board of the Federal Reserve.  This explains a lot about why our economy and monetary policy are a mess.  Thank Senator Shelby!  You're a credit to conservatives the world over.  (NOT!) 

Links relating to this post:  http://econ-www.mit.edu/faculty/pdiamond/index.htm