It's way too early to pass judgment on the legacy of the Obama administration, but the one thing you can say is that all of the predictions made by folks on both sides of the political spectrum have been off the mark: he's not the wild-eyed socialist Black Panther liberal the right feared he was (and in a perverse way hoped he would be so they could raise campaign funds on secret photos of Angela Davis playing on the White House swing set), and he's not the crusading progressive mowing down the malefactors of great wealth and purveyors of narrow-minded homophobia and intolerance that the liberals hoped he would be, either. The most predictable -- and maddening -- thing Barack Obama has done is defy predictions.
Today, MattY follows up:
Meanwhile, I actually think the most distressing thing about the criticism from folks like Krugman and Stiglitz is what you can infer reading between the lines from how ferocious it is. They, and other leading critics, are acting like people who’ve been totally shut out of the consultation/communication loop. And it’s distressing to see people of their stature and expertise getting shut out while the administration works harder on kissing Wall Street’s ass to try to persuade the finance class to avoid deliberately sabotaging the economy.
The thing to keep in mind is that this type of behavior, while frustrating, is in line with Obama's behaviors during key moments in his past. Which is all fine and good except that this time it doesn't seem as though the bridges are getting buit. CQ reports that there are divisions with Obama's economic team:
So here was one of Obama's top economic advisers undermining Geithner's key claim (we have no choice!) and questioning Romer's characterization of the firms participating in the toxic assets program. This was not a confidence booster. And I wondered what it would be like to sit in the room when Obama's economic advisers get together and try to sort all this out.
Me too.
No comments:
Post a Comment