The Chief of Staff Who Might Have Been
There are a number of details from Ron Suskind’s new book revealed by an AP and a NYT preview of it, the most alarming (but not surprising) that TurboTax Timmeh Geithner managed to save Citibank by basically ignoring Obama’s order to break it up.
The book, by Ron Suskind, a former Wall Street Journal reporter, quotes White House documents that say Mr. Obama’s decisions were routinely “re-litigated” by the chairman of the National Economic Council, Lawrence H. Summers. Some decisions, including one to overhaul the debt-ridden Citibank, were carried out sluggishly or not at all by a resistant Treasury secretary, Timothy F. Geithner, according to the book.
[snip]
In the book, Mr. Geithner denies that he obstructed any presidential directive. A senior Treasury official said a government restructuring of Citibank would have occurred only if the Treasury had been left with a significant ownership stake in the bank after it emerged from a financial stress test.
A pity Obama didn’t fire Timmeh long before it came time to panic over the fact the Administration had gone so easy on the banks. A pity, too, Obama just begged his insubordinate Treasury Secretary to stick around.
But I’m just as interested in Suskind’s revelation that Obama didn’t want Rahm at first.
The book says one of Obama’s top advisers, former chief of staff Rahm Emanuel, was not the president’s first choice for the position. According to Suskind, Emanuel’s name was not even on the initial short list, which included White House aide Pete Rouse.
Folks on the Hill are now bitching about Bill Daley. Though I think they’re crazy to miss Rahm, who may have been nicer to the Hill but was also ineffective. Me, I thought Rouse was the best of the three and wonder what it was that led Obama to pass up that choice and–in what was one of his first announcements–pick Rahm instead. It’s not like Rouse wasn’t available; he has been with the Administration throughout the Administration.
There was still a lot wrong with the execution of this Administration, such as the insubordinate Treasury Secretary that Obama didn’t fire. But a decent Chief of Staff might have at least made it more effective.
“There was still a lot wrong with the execution of this Administration”
If only! Maybe Rick Perry could help.
the president’s complete inexperience in governing explains all.
Does anyone really think that “Turbo Tax” Timmy was insubordinate? And if this is all really true, when the hell did we elect Bob Rubin President of the USA?
Why do we call him “Turbo Tax” Timmeh?
(Disclosure: I use Turbo Tax to do my taxes.)
Bob in AZ
Where’s the part of the blog where you explain what makes a chief of staff effective?
Was there something that President Obama wanted the last three years that he didn’t get which a more effective chief of staff might have helped…that anyone else who reads this blog also wanted?
And does Marcy Wheeler really think that Timothy Geithner was a lone wolf and that Obama curses everything that happened with Treasury while walking between holes on the golf course.
Where’s the Marcy Wheeler who would have ate up those fake ass bullshit document the Associated Press ran claiming the NYPD were spying on people from Yugoslavia – a country that doesn’t even exist anymore?
Or that would have pointed out all the ridiculousness in Fast and Furious nonsense and the Fox phone tapping scandal.
I miss that Marcy Wheeler…
This new blog sucks in every way…
Will there be a post on Attack Watch? I dunno…that kind of seems right up EW alley…but maybe i’m wrong…
Is it just me or do the comments suck at this new blog? I remember times when every comment used to help dig into stories….now I barely understand the stupid jokes..it’s like reading atrios.
If you weren’t hacked, then you turned into a hack…either way, it’s sad that no one else cares or seems to notice.
Ron,
Do you not have enough to do on your own blog?
Work on your professionalism.
@Bob Schacht: (during his confirmation hearings it came out he had failed to pay self-employment taxes for several years, and he tried to blame the Turbo Tax program he used…wiki page has details)
@rosalind: Rosalina:
Thanks for laying it out before I could get to it. I had thought all EW readers would be aware, but obviously not all are.
@Ron Brynaert:
Oh, those commenters are still here. It is just that interspersed in the mix are now comments from demanding people that come in and whine.
Yves has a short post RE: turbo timmy…
http://www.nakedcapitalism.com/2011/09/latest-obama-lame-excuse-my-staff-was-insubordinate.html
@Ron Brynaert: # 6 writes “Is it just me or do the comments suck at this new blog?” One person’s answer: It’s just you.
Did Suskind not think “minders”, as in Obama’s minders, was appropriate? Such a characterization would clarify the scene.
What makes you assume that Obama’s owners would allow him to fire Timmy?
@bob:
i was busy with korean condiments or i would have cautioned the same as i suspect (from her title) yves smith cautions, to whit:
one of the hallmarks of the obama administration to my mind is blaming subordinates for giving his neophyteness bad advice.
this is not the first time the econ advisors have been whacked by “someone close to the prez”.
personally, i think these econ/financial advisors deserve a damned good whacking, but obama does not have the standing to administer it.
he was in on the bumbling and fumbling and bank coddling.
“…In their sties with all their backing
They don’t care what goes on around
In their eyes there’s something lacking
What they need’s a damn good whacking.
…” George
I think Yve’s comment, as well as this one, regard this leak with the appropriate incredulity. The famously competent and arrogant Mr. Obama tolerating his top finance head “going slow” or dissing him on what could have been the most important financial decision within days of the start of his term as the first black president? Or putting it down to falling through the gap or hiccups during the start of a new administration? Not.Bloody.Likely.
I agree with the take that this is an attempt to unpaint Mr. Obama with the bad PR he deserves for his supinely pro-bankster policies. Timmeh is just the designated hitter on this one; he’ll be adequately rewarded down the road, presumably by some compliant bankster on Wall Street. It’s all about posturing for his re-election now. The lies he told about himself won’t work the second time round, so Mr. Obama’s team has to think up new ones and to explain away the consequences of his first set.
@orionATL: Agreed. Surely, Shirley made plain that Mr. Obama will set up any insubordinate to take a fall for any reason he finds convenient. Even Mr. Cheney ordinarily did it only to his enemies, admittedly a large portfolio. Mr. Obama, on the other hand, seems willing to set up anyone not on Wall Street. He may be a neophyte when it comes to actually running an organization, let alone an enormous, complex government, but he is a Chicago pol. He’s not a neophyte when it comes to protecting his own and making some other guy take a hit.
Briefly back on the comment that Mr. Obama was immediately in thrall to his military-intel complex, concerned about becoming a JFK, and therefore chose not to challenge them on any important issue. His policies certainly support that he’s in thrall to it and to them. Whether he was afraid of or simply agreed with them is another question. Perhaps we should hope it was the latter. If not, Mr. Obama ran away from serious concerns about a coup, about treasonous conduct, about material insubordination from his senior military commanders.
I’ve always thought that Rahm was a “peace offering” to the Clinton supporters – the price for getting them to play nice and be supportive.
@Ron Brynaert:
Sheesh. You were pretty rude, wicked rude.
@John B.:
lol!!!
just what was going thru my mind:
“have you seen the bigger piggies
in their starched white shirts”
@earlofhuntingdon: It’s all about posturing for his re-election now. The lies he told about himself won’t work the second time round, so Mr. Obama’s team has to think up new ones and to explain away the consequences of his first set. That is about as succinct as it gets.
Who the fuck is Ron Brynaert?
If The Big Zero is blaming his wanky pal for going off the rails I can only think it is a poor workman that blames his tools.
@earlofhuntingdon:
there’s no doubt sone truth to what you say, certainly obama was an observer and bit player in chicago politics for a long time.
still, rightly or wrongly, i believe political leadership of the sort expected of a president or prime minister requires a good deal of prior similar experience to perform competently, say governor, cabinet minister, et al.
obama did not have that experience before becoming prez.
i was thinking about this last night and reflecting how there has never been a democratic president, reaching all the way back to my youthful hero john kennedy, whose decisions have so consistently struck me as wrong-headed and often unnecessarily wrong-headed as barack obama.
it is hard for me to come up with presidential decisions obama has made that i agree with.
even when he is persuing useful national goals, the man has a genius for doing things in a way that leave me questioning his political judgement or his morality.
at this point in his presidency i really do not see how obama can come back from the morass of contempt that is slowly enveloping him from all political angles. i expect that he will simply dissappear into irrelevancy by about this time next year.
it’s not that he could not do some things different; it’s that he does not seem to see the need to do so.
this president seems to have a tin ear for democratic politics, a tin ear for american values, and a tin ear for developing a loyal national base, whether democrat or otherwise.
the guy just ain’t got no groove, politically speaking,
no groove atall.
@orionATL: As I said, I agree that Mr. Obama was green as an executive. You or I have much more experience at it than he did when he was elected. He was not inexperienced, however, at the political process, far from it. The result is a continuation of Rovian politics. That is, when the executive has no experience or talent (Obama, Bush), the way to keep office is to substitute unending politicking for actual governance. The latter is then left to agency staff – now gutted – and to their newly installed political commissars, which dramatically expands the scope for politicizing everything from DoJ charging decisions to turning the spigot on a dam in Oregon.
Rather than learn to be an executive, Mr. Obama chose to adopt the Rovian way. That he did not have first choice over his chief of staff or treasury head beggars belief. They are his top lieutenants, the protectors of his schedule and his reputation, how he presents himself to his corporate sponsors and constituents. I do not believe he is such an empty shell that he did a Bush and accepted whomever he was told to take.
@earlofhuntingdon:
for myself, i have no experience whatsoever in political management at the level of a mayor, governor, p.m. et al. i have only a life-long interest in observing american national politics.
this comment is intriguing and may explain what i cannot – why the obama presidency seems so eccentric, so off-center, in its decision making:
“… He was not inexperienced, however, at the political process, far from it. The result is a continuation of Rovian politics. That is, when the executive has no experience or talent (Obama, Bush), the way to keep office is to substitute unending politicking for actual governance. The latter is then left to agency staff – now gutted – and to their newly installed political commissars, which dramatically expands the scope for politicizing everything from DoJ charging decisions to turning the spigot on a dam in Oregon…”
what makes this explanation the more convincing is that in my mind, as in your comnents, i cannot seperate obama from bush though the two personalities are vastly different.
the explanation may well be the one you offer – that a combination of emphasis on wooing existing national power centers and on court politics was the heart-and-soul of both administrations.
When I heard that Rahm would be COS, I wondered if Obama just wanted the creep out of the House of Reps. Of course thats when I was still imagining plausible reasons for the President’s shocking reneging of his promises.
From before 11/08, I just thought he was corrupt. Lately, I’ve been thinking he’s incompetent, too.
@orionATL:
The only other reason I can come up with is that Obama is used to dealing with ‘old white guys’, having been raised by his mother’s parents, and has never gotten used to not making nice with them.
Which still doesn’t excuse his crappy choices for advisors and cabinet members.
It seems unfathomable that Obama could make some of the decisions he makes despite his status as a student, lawyer and politician. In effect, he knows to much for all of his poor decisions to be about being “green”. I believe his “bipartisan stance” was created long before he was elected and began when he started saying “look forward” to the idea of pursuing legal consequences for the Bush administration…and includes his ever controversial remarks about “Reagan”. He was signaling to somebody somewhere…and this has been representative of his truth, far more than anything else he said in the campaign.
I would buy “green” if it weren’t for his proven intelligence and past effectiveness, added to his clear signal of “bipartisanship” as he fools the nation that he is headed for change.
Obama the victim…is a cover…
Orion ATL: “this president seems to have a tin ear for democratic politics, a tin ear for american values, and a tin ear for developing a loyal national base, whether democrat or otherwise.” I wonder if his unusual upbringing means he really doesn’t understand this country, at heart.
@earlofhuntingdon:
How do we know who wrote the list in the first place? I thought Obama and Emanuel were close, and that he admired his abilities to get what he wanted.