Warren and Biden Will Duel Over the Obama Legacy
I've said this before but, at least for me, the birth of Politico magazine has saved that entire enterprise. The people working on that product have delivered some very fine longform work, especially Michael Kruse, who wanders the landscape looking for interesting people and generally finds them.
This week, Alex Thompson throws long on the wrestling match that took place between Senator Professor Warren and the economic team assembled by President Barack Obama—in particular, the sword's point relationship she had with Treasury Secretary Tim Geithner and White House economic adviser Larry Summers and, occasionally, with their boss, as well. I would bet something substantial that most of the really juicy anonymous quotes came from the unspeakable Rahm Emanuel. To wit:
Other Obama administration officials call her a “professional critic,” “sanctimonious,” and a “condescending narcissist.” As one former Treasury aide put it: “We’re with Barack. We’re the liberals. Why are you pissing in our face?” One of the administration officials adds: “She loved herself and some of her staff had a God view of her and that’s not aligned with government and bureaucrats which require teamwork.”
Jesus, for anyone who worked for Barack Obama to lay that charge on someone else takes a couple of carloads full of chutzpah. And the stunningly hypocritical invective is pure Rahm. Will we never be rid of this clown? He should be mowing Laquon McDonald's mother's lawn for her right now. Anyway, that inside-baseball business aside, this is a very clear look at the kind of genuine policy differences that are supposed to occur in our politics. Of course, in that, it was an interesting preview of Thursday night's debate, in which SPW and Joe Biden would be on the stage together for the first time during this primary campaign, an eventuality that pretty much guaranteed these issues would come up in a new and different context.
Simply put, as long as Biden's service as Obama's vice president is a cornerstone of Biden's presidential campaign, that service is going to be subject to criticism from the people running against him. And, as unpopular as this thought might to be to some people, that means that Obama's administration is going catch some heat as well. Can't be helped. And, on the issue in question, which is to say the formation of Obama's economic crisis team and its subsequent performance, this isn't criticism that is in any way new. A number of economists were quite openly critical of Obama's handing Treasury over to Geithner; Paul Krugman was apoplectic on the subject. From The New York Times:
To this end the plan proposes to create funds in which private investors put in a small amount of their own money, and in return get large, non-recourse loans from the taxpayer, with which to buy bad — I mean misunderstood — assets. This is supposed to lead to fair prices because the funds will engage in competitive bidding. But it’s immediately obvious, if you think about it, that these funds will have skewed incentives. In effect, Treasury will be creating — deliberately! — the functional equivalent of Texas S&Ls in the 1980s: financial operations with very little capital but lots of government-guaranteed liabilities. For the private investors, this is an open invitation to play heads I win, tails the taxpayers lose. So sure, these investors will be ready to pay high prices for toxic waste. After all, the stuff might be worth something; and if it isn’t, that’s someone else’s problem.
And that was from March of 2009—or, roughly, the time that SPW began to express her doubts about the proposed solutions to the still-smoking economic meltdown. The great reservoir of affection that Democrats hold for the previous president, and the absurd comparison he draws with his successor, is genuine and, by and large, justified. But the nature of our politics since Obama left office demands that these arguments be made anew. For example, in the Politico story, there is an episode in which, in 2011, shortly before she launched her first Senate campaign, Warren warns Obama that he may have misjudged the level of anger that still existed in the country. I'd have to say that the results of the 2016 election demonstrated that she was right about that, at least.
Is Barack Obama a legitimate issue in a Democratic presidential primary in 2019? Not personally, certainly. But are Tim Geithner and Larry Summers—and Rahm Emanuel—a legitimate issue? You have to be kidding, right?
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