In February 2010 everyone lied through their teeth about the impossibility of buying sovereign debt in the secondary market. That was a deliberate stance to leverage market pressure to force a political agenda on Greece.

You know, currently Jens "Worst Central Banker of the World"  Weidmann is going around and gives speeches where he basically argues that the ECB should not fulfill its Mandate, to force specific political decisions upon various European Governments! This should definitely be an issue in the political discussion.