No-Change We Can Really Believe In

Today's NYT offers abundant evidence--if you needed any--that "change we can believe in" may be more elusive than we might have hoped.

For starters, we have the accountant headed "Financial Industry Paid Millions to Obama Aide," including the datum that Obama's economy superchief Larry Summers got $135,000 for a single speech--that to Goldman Sachs, who can certainly afford it. The article itself is Times-like anodyne, but if you need help connecting the dots, go here and here.

To my mind, however, there is at least as much meat in two other stories. One is an account of Rep. Peter J. Visclosky, D-Ind, and his relationship with the uberlobbyist PMA. Generously, the Times reminds us of Visclosky's "reputation for unblemished integrity," in a district "long notorious for political corruption scandals." That may be true enough, but beside the point. Visklosky's real skill (at least on his record) may be his knack for working in the white space around the letter of the law to bring the swag to the home folks: Visclosky long ago established himself as a point man in the campaign for protective steel tarrifs (cf. link).

As a pendant to the Visclosky, we can read the front-page account of how "Obama Plan to Slash Farm Subsidies Falls Short," featuring Senator Kent Conrad of North Dakota. Conrad has established himself as perhaps President Obama's most prominent Democratic critic on budget issues, but his hard-fistedness does not extend to, e.g., the eight North Dakota "farm" entities that received more than $250,000 each in agricultural subsidies in 2006.

Okay, there is nothing really new here. It is just a reminder that politics remains what it has been: not so much an exercise in Platonic justice as a face-ripping brawl over Who Gets How Much.

Elsewhere in the NYT, I see that the chairman of the Royal Bank of Scotland thinks that the current hostility to bankers counts as a "public flogging." If he thinks that he, secure behind his million-dollar pension, has sustained "public flogging," then I think he needs to get out more.

Bill Greider, Timothy Geithner, and the Almost-President

Bill Greider, who made his bones with his masterful history of the Fed, is not impressed:

Public wrath will swell when people learn the particulars of the extremely generous deal-making with Wall Street. If he's not careful, Obama will be on the receiving end of the blame. He should seriously consider withdrawing his nomination of Timothy Geithner, president of the New York Federal Reserve Bank, to be Treasury secretary. Geithner is the badly soiled negotiator who worked out some of the most dubious deals. His easy terms protected shareholders and executives but demanded almost nothing from the failing banks for the public. Worst of all, the deals did not work. They have failed to stabilize much of anything and are still putting Wall Street preservation ahead of the national interest. Where is the evidence that we can expect a different approach if Geithner is in charge? Or even that he understands the true dimensions of this crisis? Obama had better get answers up front, or else he might wind up as history's fall guy.

It's a thought with hanging onto. What impresses me most about Geithner is how pale he appears in the shadow of Larry Summers. He seems to have worked his way up as the indispensable second man, and it looks like he may be in for more of the same.

Summers/Chemerinsky

It's not really the brief of this blog to get into farragos (farraghi?) like the Summers/Chemerinsky mess at the University of California (link, link) But here's an item that I haven't seen reported elsewhere: apparently one reason the women of UCD got all in a twist about a Summers invitation is that they fear he was being sized up as a potential UC President.

Understand, I have no real evidence that he was in fact being so wooed--but I know there was such a rumor. For my money, I've got all kinds of admiration for Larry Summers, but I think his talents don't lend themselves to a University presidency, period. And in any event, I must say I think the University's handling of the whole business is beyond ham-handed. It's as if they listened to the best PR advice and undertook to do the exact opposite.