William Daley as White House Chief of Staff: The Wrong Direction

The nation's great policy crisis, and the Obama administration's political crisis, is the Great Recession and the fact that one in six Americans who would like a full-time job cannot get one.

Why in the world is President Barack Obama selecting as his chief of staff a person who comes from the very Wall Street that wrecked the economy and who is an ardent supporter of the job-offshoring, NAFTA-style trade agreements that have hollowed out the industrial heartland?

This is exactly the wrong direction for the administration, which seems intent on drawing exactly the wrong lessons from the 2010 elections. What the public wants is meaningful action on jobs and an end to the insider, corporate deal-making arrangements that William Daley represents.