President Obama Prepares to Sort of Appoint Elizabeth Warren to Something:

[Better Believe It]

Obama Prepares to Sort of Appoint Elizabeth Warren to Something
By John Nichols
September 16, 2010


.... in case anyone thought Obama was starting to "get" that America wants a president who will stand up to the economic royalists and do the right thing, White House insiders indicated Wednesday night that he has decided against appointing Harvard law professor Elizabeth Warren to head the new Consumer Financial Protection Bureau. Instead, Obama is expected to appoint the hero of reformers to an advisory post where she will report to Treasury Secretary Timothy Geithner. Congress placed the bureau's powers within the Treasury Department until such time as a permanent director is appointed and confirmed by the Senate to a five-year term. But Geithner has never been seen as an advocate for the agency. And, despite the complimentary public statements regarding Warren by the Treasury Secretary, it has been broadly suggested that he has been a behind-the-scenes opponent of her appointment.

Warren should not be reporting to Geithner, whose subservience to Wall Street has done severe damage to the administration's ability not just to the correct the course of the economy but to crystallize financial issues that continue to play an essential role in our politics.

The president could have appointed Warren to head the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau and dared the Senate to reject a woman who has become the face of the fight to hold big banks, credit card companies and speculators to account. If Republicans threatened to block her appointment, they would have clarified the question of which party is working for Wall Street and which party is on the side of Main Street.

Or, if he really feared a filibuster would have prevented Warren from getting to the vital work of creating a muscular consumer protection agency, Obama could have made a recess appointment and put her in the position immediately. His critics would surely have screamed about Obama moving too aggressively to, um, protect consumers from being ripped off by Wall Street profiteers -- a complaint that the president and his party would have been wise to invite.

Instead, by making Warren an "assistant," Obama runs away from the fight—and gives up another chance to clarify the economic battle lines not just of the fall campaign but of his presidency.

Please read the full article at:

http://www.thenation.com/blog/154807/obama-prepares-sort-appoint-elizabeth-warren-something