Amid the swirling headlines about Tom Daschle withdrawing his nomination for Health and Human Service Secretary is a very dark, very foreboding story that tells us a lot more about what to expect from the Obama administration than a single nomination fight. It is a story that every single voter who supported Barack Obama because of his progressive economic platform should know about -- and worry about.
As every newspaper in America has been happy to report, Daschle worked with venture capitalist Leo Hindery after he left the Senate. Hindery was a top economic adviser to John Edwards and later to Barack Obama, and many had floated his name for U.S. Trade Representative or Commerce Secretary. Now, though, that won't be happening, as anyone mentioned near the Daschle flap is being shunned by the Obama administration.
But is that really why someone as accomplished as Hindery was never seriously considered for a top economic post in the administration? The media and the Obama administration would like us to believe yes -- but the answer is no. It has far less to do with the Daschle situation and far more to do with Hindery's progressive economic ideology.
Buried in a Politico dispatch, we get the real story:
Hindery did his best to carve out his own public profile, with generous contributions to a range of Democratic-leaning organizations and a 2005 book, "It Takes a CEO," decrying outsourcing, Wal-Mart, and "an ethical and aesthetic 'race to the bottom'" in the media industry.
He also hoped to land a job in the Obama administration, and he had a close Obama adviser -- Daschle -- in his corner, the two Democrats said. United Steeelworkers union officials also backed him.But while Hindery complained that he "waited for the phone to ring," a source said, "Obama's aides appear never to have taken his bid seriously. One possible source of friction: Hindery had set himself up in opposition to Obama's top economic advisors, many of whom were associated with The Hamilton Project, an economic think tank that was the inheritor of former Treasury Secretary Rubin's generally pro-trade position.
In the same story, of course, we get hedge fund shark Steve Rattner -- a huge Democratic fundraiser on Wall Street -- bashing Hindery for backing populist Democratic candidates for local and national office.
And that's the big story here: Leo Hindery, one of the few business leaders to use his wealth to challenge deregulation, corporate trade deals and anti-worker policies was blacklisted by the Obama administration well before the Daschle flap ever happened -- and he was blacklisted because he dared to clash with the same Wall Street Democrats whose corporate-backed policies destroyed the economy.
You can say this is just theory -- just a single example. But that's willful ignorance, as the Hindery scalping is only one chapter in what has been one long narrative arc whereby economic progressives have been deliberately shut out of top administration jobs. Just step back and think about it for a minute: Amid a stable of eminently qualified and well-respected progressives like James Galbraith, Joseph Stiglitz, Robert Reich, Paul Krugman and Larry Mishel, Obama has chosen Rubin sycophants like Larry Summers and Tim Geithner to run the economy -- the same Larry Summers who pushed the repeal of the Glass-Steagal Act, the same Geithner who masterminded the kleptocratic bank bailout, the same duo whose claim to fame is their personal connections to Rubin, a disgraced Citigroup executive at the center of the current meltdown. And the list of Rubin sycophants keeps getting longer, from Peter Orszag to Jason Furman.
As the Nation's Chris Hayes shows, its the same in other key regulatory positions, as free market fundamentalists who created the problem take the helm of the regulatory agencies they tried to destroy. Indeed, the only movement progressive in a top economic position is Jared Bernstein, and he was relegated to an amorphous job in the vice president's office.
And now we see that's not an accident. Though Obama won states like Ohio, Pennsylvania and Indiana on promises to challenge Wall Street and reform our trade policies, there has been a deliberate and calculated effort to stack the administration with the very Wall Street Democrats who created the problems he lamented, and shun those who have been fighting the good fight.
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Daschle Pushed Patron For Obama Job: Dem
Tom Daschle backed the patron who paid him a million-dollar salary and supplied him with a free car and driver for a job inside the...
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Tom Daschle Withdraws Nomination For HHS Secretary
Additional reporting by Sam Stein and Rachel Weiner WASHINGTON -- Tom Daschle withdrew Tuesday as President Barack Obama's nominee to be health and human services...
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Deliberating on Daschle
Critics of President Obama will use the Daschle incident to claim that Obama is not really about change, and is captive of the same politicians and lobbyists who have always run Washington.
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Danger: Creeping Puritanism
Tom Daschle's resignation should have been accepted, however, that of Nancy Killefer should have been refused. Responses must be tailored to the "sin." Not all imperfections make a person unfit for office.
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Democratic Tax Goof Follies
The Daschle-Geithner-Killefer tax goof is based on an almost-unconscious hope that the system they theoretically want to work ... won't.
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Daschle's Situation, and the Small-Dollar Solution
Like many decent people, Daschle got caught in a bad system that is so corrupted by money it hardly matters whether the money is from good people with good intentions or bad people with bad intentions.
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Tax Avoidance as the New "Sin"
The modern version of: "Let he who is without sin cast the first stone" has arrived. It is: "Let he (or she) who has not told his accountant to do whatever they can in order to pay the least taxes cast the first stone."
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Why Obama's Well-Oiled Machine Screwed Up on Daschle and Company
The vetters are not supposed to rely on let alone accept the word of the prospective nominee that they paid what they owed.
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Why Is Daschle Out and Geithner In?
Daschle isn't irreplaceable for health care reformers, but Obama would make a big mistake in appointing a replacement with any lessor convictions on a public heath care option.
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Daschle's Premature Dash
The only thing more implausible than believing that a multi-millionaire with national ambitions would willfully try to defraud the IRS of $140,000 is believing that a man like that actually does his own taxes.
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Are We Doing the Bidding of Conservatives?
Media coverage has been dominated with hysteria over tax mistakes already rectified, and claims of "pork" in the economic recovery bill -- all aiming to paint the new White House as hypocritical old politics.
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Progressive Agenda Tip #1: Pay Your Taxes
When our leaders, or even our potential leaders, fail to contribute to the collective good, it feeds our lack of faith in them as stewards of the incredible coercive power of government.
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Howard Dean for HHS or Health Czar
There's no way that Rahm Emanuel's animosity toward Dean can be explained away if they pass over him again, especially given his tremendous success at the DNC.
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Obama Considers Tax on Cabinet
President Obama is mulling a controversial new tax program that would require members of his Cabinet to pay taxes owed under the Federal tax code, the White House confirmed today.
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However, I am not surprised because this was always the hollow substance behind "new politics".
So many progressives were co-opted by style, they totally forgot to pay attention to substance.
is that they appear to spend much time wandering around aimlessly,
just bumping into each other. Pick a direction, start moving that way.
However, you make a good point. "New politics" is really just a rebranding of the same old wimpy DLC-triangulation we could have seen under Bill Clinton.
If we PROGRESSIVES blow our opportunity NOW to swing the pendulum back from decades of CONSERVATIVE/CORPORATE rule then the Obama presidency will be a total FAILURE!
For too long the Conservative Movement has fought hard to CONSERVE "their" power!
This is OUR time to PROGRESS the agenda for "we the people".
President Obama be bold, be PROGRESSIVE!
Instead of expecting Obama to suddenly become a progressive champion, we need to advocate on our own to the Democrats in Congress. They have large majorities and they should use them. If we had a Senate Majority Leader willing to play hardball we'd easily get 1 or 2 Republicans to refuse to join each fillibuster. Congress is a co-equal branch of government. Instead of hoping against hope that Obama will suddenly change, it is better for us to advocate on our own behalf. Our loyalty should be towards the principles we hold dear, not the personality of an elected politician.
"...Obama has chosen Rubin sycophants like Larry Summers and Tim Geithner to run the economy -- the same Larry Summers who pushed the repeal of the Glass-Steagal Act..."
There is little question that the repeal of Glass-Steagal was a major component in all that has gone wrong on Wall St.
But I am still guardedly optimistic; perhaps Obama is more of a strategist than these selections woud imply--it's not likely, but perhaps he anticipated these appointment problems, and will work in true progressives at a later date [but that seems like wishful thinking even as I type it].
The presence of all of these Free Market Fundies is very troubling to me, and I am still fighting off the creeping notion that these finanical feudalists will really in there to assure that nothing significant changes.
I don't like that Obama has ANYTHING to do with Rubin..yes..very very disappointing...but have to say abut Daschel....glad HE's out!...South Daktoa....paid farms a LOT for ethanol in place of food grain...short-sighted..and What? over $150,000 in unpaid taxes...my GOD..we little people..well#1..would never make enough to owe that much...but come on..this was NOT an oversight..this was cheating...out with the whole damn lot....
You totally forgot Austan Goolsbee!
It's not so much a blacklisting as it is a feud. Obama's economists (including Goolsbee
and others) are Chicago School Friedmanites, or Neo-Keynesians (or even Neo-Fried-
manites), who happen to share many views with their Repo brethren coincidentally.
The feud however is with the more classical Keynesians, like Krugman, and involves
big time economists.
Jeez... won't we ever learn.
Glenn Greenwald referred to an article written about Daschle's move to the firm as Bob Dole, saying this is how Washington works -
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/articles/A32604-2005Mar13.html
" Dole said the Democrat would be a valuable asset to the firm even though Congress is run by the GOP these days.
"He's got a lot of friends in the Senate, and I've got a lot of friends in the Senate, and, combined, who knows -- we might have 51," Dole joked.
Others who recently made the switch include John Breaux, former Democratic senator from Louisiana who became a senior counsel at Patton Boggs, and W.J. "Billy" Tauzin (R-La.), former chairman of the House Committee on Energy and Commerce who is the new head of the Pharmaceutical Research and Manufacturers of America."
I was surprised by something I read in wiki about Geithner
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Timothy_F._Geithner
"His father, Peter F. Geithner, ... During the early 1980s, ... oversaw the Ford Foundation's microfinance programs in Indonesia being developed by Ann Dunham-Soetoro, mother of President Barack Obama, and they met in person at least once."
Timothy's father and Barak's mother had a professional relationship ... don't know if that means anything, but I was surprised.
But you dont want accountability from yourself and Democrats......?
Read it..........
"It was Summers who worked in cahoots with Enron and banking lobbyists, and who backed Republican Sen. Phil Gramm’s Commodity Futures Modernization Act, which banned any effective government regulation of the newly unleashed derivatives market".
"It was Summers who most vehemently pushed for congressional passage of that drastic deregulation measure, the Financial Services Modernization Act, which eliminated the New Deal barriers against mergers of commercial and investment banks as well as insurance companies and stockbrokers".
Quotes from TRUTHDIG
Obama has chosen to take sides with the BANKERS......... Instead of American people