Friedman is Banquo's ghost at Biden's banquet

The Biden administration is often characterized as lying about various aspects of the economy.  It certainly feels that way much of the time when they make statements seemingly so at odds with reality.  

But I just watched a snippet of an interview with Secretary of Treasury Yellen which suggests an alternative interpretation.  From Janet Yellen blames Americans' 'splurging' for record-high inflation by Kristine Parks and  Nikolas Lanum.  The subheading is Stephen Colbert notes Biden administration dismissed inflation as 'small risk' last year.

President Biden, when running for the presidency, somewhat infamously said "Milton Friedman isn’t running the show anymore."  But it certainly seems as if he is still running the show.  Or, at least, his dictum from The counter-revolution in monetary theory, published in 1970

Inflation is always and everywhere a monetary phenomenon in the sense that it is and can be produced only by a more rapid increase in the quantity of money than in output.

seems to be fully operative.  Friedman is Banquo's ghost at Biden's banquet.

The Biden administration and its various members have for more than a full year been in denial of inflation, of recession, of labor market dislocations, of supply chain problems, etc.  They have been consistent in their effort to blame either Covid or Russia for any economic distress being felt.

In the interview above, Yellen blames inflation on Covid, on Russia and on profligate American consumer spending.  But Parks and Lanum go further and quote a couple of other Administration officials.

White House chief of staff Ron Klain was mocked for suggesting rising costs and supply chain issues were a "high class" problem last year. 

Energy Secretary Jennifer Granholm was also criticized for laughing at rising gas prices and offering Americans tax credits for installing solar panels on their homes.

Which raises the question in my mind: What if they aren't lying and actually believe what they are saying?  

We printed massive amounts of money to support massive deficit spending, virtually none of which was either necessary or was invested in any infrastructure or policy which would increase American productivity.  Of course that is always and everywhere the cause of the inflation.

That acknowledgement of responsibility might be politically catastrophic.  It is natural to assume that they are consciously lying.  But I wonder if there might be a different dynamic, that they simply cannot psychologically acknowledge their own culpability and are manufacturing the tissue of excuses, not to deceive the public, but to relieve themselves of responsibility?  

It is a pretty tissue-thin explanation but they all seem so sincere and deliberate in their false explanations that it does seem as if they believe their own fantasies.