With the President out in Ohio trying out his new 'populist' message, one might hope that the Obama Administration has "seen the light" and decided to finally distance itself from the failed economic policies and players of the Bush era.
Not!!!
Probably not five minutes after jumping into the SUV after this morning's rally in Ohio, Obama was working the phones in a decidedly un-populist fashion:
[Federal Reserve Chairman Ben] Bernanke's confirmation suddenly appeared in jeopardy on Friday after two Senate Democrats announced they were opposed, joining a growing number of senators who had vowed to vote against his appointment.
In one sign of how worried the White House is, President Barack Obama called the Democratic Senate leadership on Saturday to make sure Bernanke's confirmation was on track.
A senior administration official said the senators had assured Obama that Bernanke would be confirmed.
http://www.reuters.com/...
Now, I know there are plenty of reasons to think that Bernanke is not so bad, Krugman and Roubini think he should be confirmed, etc., etc.
Oh, come the f*ck on people!
FACT: Ben Bernanke was appointed to his current position by George W. Bush.
FACT: Ben Bernanke was directly responsible for the still-secretive backdoor multi-billion dollar give-away to Goldman Sachs via AIG.
FACT: Ben Bernanke was appointed to his current position by GEORGE W. BUSH!!!
OK, I don't want to rehash the arguments about how if we hadn't bailed out AIG and Goldman Sachs we'd all be eating squirrels right now -- I don't personally believe it, but the answer will never be known conclusively.
But "populism", being as it is a kind of a variant of irrational mob rule, means that sometimes the people might just want somebody's "head on the platter", and who's head would look better on a platter than hold-over Bush-appointee Ben Bernanke?
I don't care how you cut it, Bernanke is not blameless in all of this. He either failed to see it coming, or gave away too much money. One or the other, or both.
What could possibly be wrong with putting a Democratic appointee into the most powerful position in our economy for the next four years, instead of continuing with another bad legacy of the Bush years?
Gates, I can understand somewhat -- those are their wars -- they should finish them.
But Bernanke?
Just say "thanks for helping us avert certain disaster, now it's time for a transformation of our economic structure to bring back the middle class in America."
Come on Dem's, this is a golden opportunity to make that conclusive break with the Bush economy.
Right?