Tuesday, March 10, 2009

Obama the Pragmatist

The ever-clearheaded Charlie Cook makes better than I can a point I have been trying to make for a while (link): Obama is a pragmataist, not a liberal (nor a populist, nor even a centrist) who is likely to have major headaches from Democrats alongside those he gets from Republicans. "Take, for example, his economic policy team," says Cook--"nary a Robert Reich in the bunch." Ooh, that's gotta hurt, but I must say that for Reich I might have substituted Joseph Stiglitz. Stiglitz seems to me to be a pretty bright guy--Reich, more or less of a shadow of Paul Krugman.

[There's a round of the old "ask for...hope for...settle for" game--Ask for Paul Krugman, hope for Joe Stiglitz, settle for Robert Reich.]

I do wonder how long Tim Geithner will last though. But then again, I didn't think this guy would last, either.

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