Obama's 100 days+

Obama has done one thing that will go down in history as "game changing". I don't just mean getting himself elected. That certainly was a game changer. How quickly has the country (apart from a small minority of racist largely Republican) accepted a black president as "normal".

The really significant thing in my view is the number of "people of color" he has brought into his cabinet whose credentials are awesome. Steve Chu is a Nobel physicist. His new Supreme Court nominee is a Hispanic who graduated Summa from Princeton and onto Yale Law Review. And so on. Never again one should hear the argument that there are no qualified "minority" citizens. There are plenty and Obama has once put away that not so subtle racist argument.

However, as long time supporter of Obama, Frank Rich of the NY Times wrote in today's Sunday paper that some serious stuff is going down badly. The full column is here. It shoudl be read in full.

Here are a few excerpts:

...The administration’s two financial gurus, Lawrence Summers and Timothy Geithner, wrote to preview their plan [in the Washington Post]: “Some people will say that this is not the time to debate the future of financial regulation, that this debate should wait until the crisis is fully behind us,” they wrote by way of congratulating themselves on taking charge.

Who exactly are these “some people” who want to delay debate on the future of regulation? Not anyone you or I know. Most Americans were desperate for action and wondered why it was taking so long. The only people who Summers and Geithner could possibly be talking about are the bankers in their cohort who helped usher us into this disaster in the first place. Both men are protégés of one of them, Robert Rubin, the former wise man of Citigroup.

There are some worthwhile protections in the Summers-Geithner legislation, especially for consumers, but there’s little that will disturb these unnamed “people” too much.

Remember I raged over the lose-lose proposition of Geithner's Public/Private Investment Plan? To see how the issue of "conflict of interest" has been set aside for Obama's economic team working with some of the powerful people in the financial sector, just read in the same issue of NY Times a long article on Bill Gross's role in shaping government policy. I don't know to laugh or to cry. Read the full article as well here.

NY Times has been a huge supporter of Obama's Campaign for President.

Another longstanding "liberal" magazine close to the Center is also unhappy about Obama's increasingly "traditional" politics as usual presidency. The whole article by Kevin Baker needs subscription at Harper's Magazine, July Issue. But here is one excerpt.