Do you think any of that came up in the vetting?
Let’s say we give Buffett a pass — smart move he made, skipping the group photo-op last week in Chicago. What about the rest of them? Donaldson, for one, was chairman when the SEC voted in 2004 to let the big Wall Street banks, including Lehman Brother s Holdings Inc. and Bear Stearns Cos., lever up their balance sheets like drunks. Talk about blowing it. And whom did Obama tap for White House chief of staff? Rahm Emanuel, the Illinois congressman who was a director at Freddie Mac in 2000 and 2001 while it was committing accounting fraud. Ideally, this job would go to someone who can’t be easily fooled. Think about it: O f all the people Obama could have chosen as his chief of staff, couldn’t he have found someone who wasn’t once on the board of Freddie Mac?
Renewed Confidence
The president-elect needs some new advisers — fast. We are in a crisis of confidence in American capitalism. These aren’t the right people to re-instill its sense of honor. Many of them should be getting subpoenas as material witnesses’ right about now, not places in Obama’s inner circle. Did Obama learn nothing from the ill-fated choice of James Johnson, the former Fannie Mae boss, to lead his vice- presidential search committee? Does he think people like Robert Rubin or Richard P arsons will offer any helpful advice on how to stop crooked bankers or sleep-walking directors from sinking our economy? O r that they won’t mistake the nation’s needs for their own corporate interests? Or that the people who helped get us into our long financial nightmare have any clue how to get us out? Obama has created hope that our nation can stand for all that is good in the world again. It’s not too late to change course.
Start by scrapping this board.
Editor’s Note: William J. Daley is now the White House Chief of Staff; & Rahm Emanuel is now the Mayor of Chicago
(Jonathan Weil is a Bloomberg News columnist. The opinions expressed are his own.) To contact the writer of this column: Jonathan Weil in New York at jweil6@bloomberg.net
Article Submitted by: Bobby Ward
This Article Appeared in The Black Truth News Volume 2 Issue 10 October 2011