Finally we have something fun to talk about. This could save us from wallowing in the horrors of Obama’s health insurance company bailout bill all weekend long. Matt Taibbi’s latest piece came out in Rolling Stone weeks ago, but was only available to subscribers until recently. Suddenly there is a fascinating back and forth going on between Taibbi and Obama apologist Tim Fernholtz at American Prospect. Fernholz nitpicked Taibbi’s article in a much-discussed critique. Then Felix Salmon stepped in to add his two cents to war of words. Then, Taibbi put his own response to Fernholz up on his blog. And finally, the latest: Fernholz has a new response to Taibbi’s response and he includes a couple of digs at Salmon too!
Here are links to all the relevant articles with some highlights:
Taibbi’s original RS story: Obama’s Big Sellout
Taibbi’s main argument is that Bob Rubin and people closely connected with him are running Obama’s economic policy–ensuring that deregulation and free-trade will continue to be the order of the day, rather than efforts to control an out-of-control Wall Street.
It is bad enough that one of Bob Rubin’s former protégés from the Clinton years, the New York Fed chief Geithner, is intimately involved in the negotiations, which unsurprisingly leave the Federal Reserve massively exposed to future Citi losses. But the real stunner comes only hours after the bailout deal is struck, when the Obama transition team makes a cheerful announcement: Timothy Geithner is going to be Barack Obama’s Treasury secretary!
Geithner, in other words, is hired to head the U.S. Treasury by an executive from Citigroup — Michael Froman — before the ink is even dry on a massive government giveaway to Citigroup that Geithner himself was instrumental in delivering. In the annals of brazen political swindles, this one has to go in the all-time Fuck-the-Optics Hall of Fame.
Wall Street loved the Citi bailout and the Geithner nomination so much that the Dow immediately posted its biggest two-day jump since 1987, rising 11.8 percent. Citi shares jumped 58 percent in a single day, and JP Morgan Chase, Merrill Lynch and Morgan Stanley soared more than 20 percent, as Wall Street embraced the news that the government’s bailout generosity would not die with George W. Bush and Hank Paulson.
Fernholz’s critique: The Errors of Matt Taibbi
Matt Taibbi has done it again — written a nightmare of a story for Rolling Stone on Obama’s economic sell-out of his campaign. The piece is a factual mess, a conspiracy theorist’s dream, doesn’t even indict Obama for his real failures (which I’ll discuss in a post later today) and of course invokes the cold hands of Bob Rubin like a bogeyman at every turn. This is pernicious for a lot of journalistic reasons, but politically it’s bad for progressives beacuse conspiracy theories stand in the way of good policy analysis and good activism, replacing them with apathy and fear.
Salmon’s critique of Fernholtz’s critique: Fernholtz vs. Taibbi
Tim Fernholz’s intemperate attack on Matt Taibbi and his latest article is getting a lot of attention in the Twittersphere. It turns out that a lot of journalists don’t like Taibbi, and love it when he gets taken down a peg.
But Fernholz’s attack is weaker than it looks at first glance; a lot of it is simply a matter of slant and opinion.
Taibbi’s response to Fernholz: On Obama’s Big Sellout
So I fucked up with that line — “a former Clinton diplomat” — and for that I certainly am sorry, among other things because Rolling Stone’s fact-checkers are the most rigorous in the business (much more so than any other newspaper or magazine I’ve worked for) and I think actually this was my error and not theirs, a late-stage mixup near press time.
Now, that said, it was indeed Bob Rubin’s son Jamie who worked with Michael Froman in the Obama transition team. Had it not been Bob Rubin’s son, that would certainly have qualified as a serious error, because then we’d be making an argument based upon a factual error.
But the basic argument of the article was that an enormous number of people with ties to Bob Rubin and/or other Wall Street insiders had assumed positions of responsibility in the Obama transition and White House. And Jamie Rubin is Bob Rubin’s son, and he was a headhunter for Obama’s economic hires from the first days of the transition. So the meaning here is really not significantly different. The fact that this heads the Prospect’s list of complaints says a lot about the substance of this criticism.
Fernholz’s response to Taibbi’s response and Salmon’s critique of his critique of Taibbi: Lighting Round
So yesterday’s post on Matt Taibbi’s latest in Rolling Stone got a bit more attention than I had anticipated, including a response from Felix Salmon that I thought was worth addressing. Salmon defends Taibbi — I’d accuse him of some logrolling in our time thanks to his appearance in the piece, but Salmon is better than that — but it’s not a very strong defense….
Here’s my point: Taibbi has written an article arguing that Obama has sold out his campaign-era economic populism by surrounding himself with Bob Rubin’s lackeys and giving away the farm to the bankers — “one of the most dramatic political about-faces in our history.” Only it turns out, though, that many of the Rubinites he identifies don’t work on the things he says they work on, or don’t take the positions he applies to them, or aren’t as influential as he thinks they are. The people he says were “banished” from Obama’s inner circle, like Austan Goolsbee, weren’t. He manages not to mention any of the populist decisions Obama has made.
And Andrew Leonard at Salon is threatening to get involved–he sounds like another Obama apologist.
Is it my imagination, or does the attribution “spent 12 years as an executive at Goldman Sachs” now carry with it the stain of the scarlet letter? Nothing more need be said.
I will return to this theme later today when I tackle Matt Taibbi’s Rolling Stone assault on President Barack Obama but let’s note here for the record that this is yet another case of the White House proposing a sensible piece of regulatory reform — anything that quacks like a financial services banking duck should be regulated like a financial services banking duck — that has been watered down by Congress.
Back and forth–who will be heard from next and will they come to blows?
UPDATE I:
Here is the promised attack on Taibbi by Andrew Leonard: Matt Taibbi goes Obama scalp hunting
And, another voice pipes up from the peanut gallery, Big Media Matt, king of the apologists, Blame Obama First h/t MABlue
UPDATE II:
Salmon returns Leonard’s serve: Don’t Ask Taibbi to be Krugman
But where does Salmon get the idea that we have a “left-leaning government now?” What is he smoking?
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Filed under: Barack Obama, Blogosphere, broken promises, corruption, Economy, financial bailout, Politics, populism | Tagged: American Prospect, Andrew Leonard, Citigroup, Economics, Felix Salmon, Matt Taibbi, Reuters, Robert Rubin, Rolling Stone, Salon, Tim Fernholtz, Tim Geithner |
Great job BB.
I have actually spent the last hour reading everything about those back and forth.
Since no new Tiger Woods’s mistress came out today, this here is a pretty good ersatz.
I just updated the post with relevant excerpts from each piece.
Tim Fernholz’s Lightning Round is a little strange He didn’t really address Taibbi’s response to his critique. He chose to focus on Felix Salmon. I was really interested in his response to Taibbi’s response because the latter did a very good job in addressing the main part of Tim’s critique.
I like how Tim Fernholz complains about the fact that Taibi didn’t about what HE sees as Obama’s sellout and that Taibbi
I think Fernholz knows he screwed up and now he’s just talking ragtime in order to save face. Salmon took most of his criticisms apart and made Fernholz look like a nit-picker.
Sigh!!! Matt Yglesias jumps in:Blame Obama First
It figures he would have to join the fray. Thanks for the link!
What were those populist decisions? I don’t recall any.
I was wondering about that, too. The most populist gesture he’s taken seems to be letting People mag poll for what kind of dog his family should have. And, in the end Kennedy gifted the Obamas with a Portuguese waterdog.
I asked Salmon about Taibbi’s 20 trillion number on the bailout outlays and guarantees. He says Taibbi is using Barofsky’s numbers and implicitly backs it up. Holy cow.
Do you know who Andrew Leonard is? Is he an economist?
Now I go by the more illustrious title of “senior technology writer” for Salon.com.
And John Carney of Business Insider responded similarly.
The $23 Trillion isn’t Taibbi’s number. It is Neil Barofsky’s estimate of total max outlays from current bailout commitments. @threewickets
Taibbi said it was a worst case scenario–but so what? The administrations worst-case scenario for unemployment was something like 8.9%
There in lies the rub. These worst-case scenarios seem to have a nasty habit of happening and not being worst-case at all.
I wonder why, in all this chest bumping, there was no mention of the 36% of Citi that was bought by Kuwait, Saudi Arabia, Dubuai and Japan. (Although, I gather Kuwait has now sold theirs – to whom?) What does that international rescue effort really mean? What, besides, profit, was the motive for them? How do these international plays affect our efforts to fix what is broken?
OK, here is the promised attack on Taibbi by Andrew Leonard at Salon:
http://www.salon.com/technology/how_the_world_works/index.html?story=/tech/htww/2009/12/11/matt_taibbi_barack_obama
What I find less important than whodunit is what they done.
Example from the Leonard piece linked above:
Why fuss over Goolsbee? The important fact is Obama lied about NAFTA
Exactly. Taibbi is nuts if he thinks Goolsbee is a populist. Goolsbee wants to privatize social security! But that isn’t the point. None of these guys wants to blame Obama for his own policies. At least Taibbi is starting to get it.
No kidding. But the Obama apologists aren’t gonna go there, so they nitpick instead.
This is from from Yglesias’ post:
According to him, Obama can’t get anything accomplished because of Congress. Excuse me? The Dems have a supermajority. And Obama has been getting exactly what he wants from Congess anyway.
See the story I posted in a thread earlier where he claims America is ungovernable. Pure bullshit.
TARP and the FISA revision were passed without much trouble, even though the general public was opposed to both.
I saw, but didn’t read. I’ll go find it.
The Yglesias meme that Obama can’t get things done because America is ungovernable undercuts the entire argument for having elected Obama in the first place — which, remember, was that Obama was so unique and was the only one who could change Washington.
You don’t hear that bullshit about changing Washington anymore, do you?
yet the bots still chant “yes we can” while the Obama apologists argue “no we can’t,” go figure
oops left out a few words , should say “is ungovernable” after America.
I fixed it for you.
And now Salmon back on Leonard. (This is like playing twister. Getting confoosed.)
http://seekingalpha.com/article/177871-don-t-ask-taibbi-to-be-krugman
LOL! I love food fights in the blogosphere.
The commenters on the Yglesias post are mostly ridiculing him.
Not reassuring from Paul Volcker.
http://www.businessinsider.com/volcker-theres-no-growth-other-than-what-the-feds-pouring-into-the-economy-2009-12
Isn’t that pretty obvious by now? Growth doesn’t exist on Main St. America.
Yeah, well, if they’d look away from their computer models and textbooks and self-reinforcing society every once in awhile and just take a DRIVE down any average Main Street, they might know what is FUCKING OBVIOUS to the rest of us.
There is no economic activity other than that generated by Ben frantically pedaling on the Fed’s hamster wheel. That’s fine and good if all you need is the spark to jump-start the private sector. But if you think you can generate enough power for an entire economy from that, you’re dreaming.
The thing that differentiates this recession from others is the DEBT. We pulled out of the last one because consumers went out and SPENT. But what they spent was their credit, their equity loans, their home values. They can’t do that this time. They are flat busted, over their heads in debt, can’t borrow another dime, and have no jobs. If the PTB are waiting on the American Consumer to rescue them this time, they are living in la-la land. Ain’t gonna happen.
Matt Yglesias:
Funny, but it seems to me Obama got everything he asked for from Congress regarding Wall Street. They’ve been fighting and nit-picking healthcare reform for months now, but TARP and the stimulus sailed through in a matter of days.
He did. Yglesias seems to be conflating the health care fight with the bank bailout. Ironically, Obama is getting exactly what he wanted from the blue dogs in the House and convservative Dems in the Senate too. I guess Yglesias thinks when Obama lies, he’s actually telling the true and then getting beaten down by Congress
ROFLOL!
Exactly, he’s blaming the Blue Dogs for what the Fed and Obama’s Treasury has been free to do in the past year. It’s defend Obama first, then support with whatever pretzel logic. Makes no sense. Congress is miles behind this runaway train. It’s the Administration and the Fed trying to pull off some magic trick with the capital markets. Someone (like Volcker) needs to step in and inject some reality.
I have to admit, Volker makes more sense than Bernanke.
Obama’s minions had no problem corraling the superdelegates by threatening to “primary” them. So how come he has no way of influencing them now that he’s, oh, the prez?
The idea that Obama is being led astray by his advisers is premised on his lack of knowledge and experience. That’s inescapable.
I agree he lacks knowledge and experience, but I think he’s corrupt too.
I figured that out last year during the primaries.
I remember the same sort, the Bush apologists, continually said the same BS about the Bush white house, that he was being led astray by bad advisors.
I but if you looked you could find the very same Obama apologists calling BS on that notion when it was about Bush.
I have to say, this is rather fun to watch. What a bunch of asswipes.
hey, remember Ronkseattle? He was one of the first co-bloggers on TC. He wrote this very clairvoyant post last year in January 2008. It’s all about Goolsbee. Obots should have seen this coming but would they listen?!?!?The audiology of Hope: Dogwhistle Economics
When the bonus class saw Goolsbee on Obama’s advisor list, they knew exactly what they were getting. Ronk tried. But the Obots had their fingers in their ears singing, “R@CISTS, R@CISTS!!!”
And now we’re stuck with him. Thanks for nuthin’, kos.
I still miss him.
Reminds me of kids:
Kid #1: You suck!
Kid#2: No, you suck!
Politico:
How much of that $300 million went to Democrats? What were administration officials saying to Wall Street in private? Was it anything like Goolsbee said to Canada about NAFTA?
“Don’t worry about the rhetoric, we got your back”
this is as phony as his rhetoric against the insurance cos
I’m sick of hearing about Obama taking a populist tone. I’d like to see some populist actions.
He’s desperately reverting to campaign mode again: Obama The Scold, railing against “old politics” and portraying himself as the product of Immaculate Political Conception. Something tells me it’s not going to fly this time.
LOL Immaculate Political Conception Love it.
Double LOL.
TRIPLE ROFLMAO
Quad! *g*
Immaculate Political Conception…… sounds like a great book title 🙂
I like this comment on the second Fernholtz apologia:
Other commenters want to know why Fernholtz isn’t responding directly to Taibbi’s post. Um…because Taibbi made Fernholtz look like a fool?
Didn’t get a chance to comment on the shock doctrine, but wanted to say:
Who are those four men on horses I just saw riding past my house?
Yea, I’m feeling a bit uneasy about things. Dak, if you find your way to Canada, make room for the rest of us.
actually, this time around I’m buying land and I’m intending to be a refuge … that thought was for tibetan and nepalis, but hey, come on up to the katfarm!!!
BB
you wanted something to cheer you up today. Try this.
http://uppitywoman08.wordpress.com/2009/12/11/hillary-clinton-receives-eleanor-roosevelt-lifetime-achievement-award-in-human-rights-for-actually-doing-something/
Every time I feel like things are bad and it is useless to keep trying , This great lady Hillary Clinton gives me a reason to believe.
WOMEN WITH INTELLIGENCE AND EXPERIENCE,MEN WHO SUPPORT THEM AND COUNTRY BEFORE PARTY ALWAYS
PUMAS,BUBBAS,EQUALISTS AND THOSE PEOPLE RULE
Thanks, Helen. That was excellent!
Digby:
Yeah, only a fool would have taken Obama for a progressive.
Digby. I have a lot easier time forgiving Taibbi than Digby. She actually has a lot more influence actual voters than he does.
Yeah–if it’s common knowledge Obama is a fairly doctrinaire Rubinite, then I have to wonder for the billionth time why the primary was such a bloodbath and why anyone who stood between us and the One Last Hope for Civilization had to be destroyed.
And Digby knew Obama was bad news. I know she did.
From Wingnut First Class Glenn Reynolds:
But those smarter-than-everybody-else Obots couldn’t see it coming.
They were too busy calling people raycist to see anything coming.
Premature ejaculation has become a medical condition.
Isn’t viagra for guys who can’t get it up in the first place? Actually, both of those problems are often psychological. If a man can still get erection in his sleep, it isn’t a physical condition.
Treating PE with Viagra is like fighting fire with gasoline.
it’s just a way to get it paid for by insurance … PE is a medical condition, being pregnant or needing birth control is a pre-existing nonessential treatment and abortion is basically elective plastic surgery that murders baby jesus in the manger
lol
myiq2xu, I admit. I laughed. Big.
Oy.
Yep that is a great summation of the special needs of da fellas.
It might be easier to swallow Yglesias’ “It’s all Congress’ fault” excuse if Obama were out publicly campaigning for, and using his bully pulpit rousing the public in favor of, real reform. But he’s not, and I’m not surprised.
The only time I ever saw him light up with genuine emotion and passion is when campaigning for HIMSELF, when talking about HIMSELF, and how HE was the Golden Child who would change everything.
Even during the campaign his passion was never when speaking of policy, of the nitty gritty, of what we needed to do and how we’d do it. He was always flat and bored sounding on policy. He recited those lines by rote. The much-hailed passion and “magic” was only there when speaking of himself.
Any idiot could have seen that he was caught up in dreams of me-as-president – with-fawning-believers-hanging-on-my-words, not concrete goals for our country. Obama’s passion has always been Obama, and any dreams regarding this country have ever and always been merely the vehicle most handy, the set and scenery for the star player in his inner drama.
When we have the Very Historical Doris Kearns Goodwin saying Obama’s Nobel acceptance speech was his transition from candidate, and the Very Serious David Gergen saying it was also his transition from Citizen Obama to President Obama… apparently this is all happening in some fantasy world where Obama has only been president for one day that just goes on forever and ever.
Like a nightmare that never ends?
Catch this one from The Daily Beast:
http://www.thedailybeast.com/blogs-and-stories/2009-12-11/hillary-was-right/?cid=hp:mainpromo5
They are just pining for the halycon days of Candidate Obama, and don’t want to let go. Sort of like the woman who sits around reading the love poems her now abusive and philandering husband used to write her years ago – trying to convince herself that thats who he really is
Doris Kearns Goodwin and David Gergen. Makes you wonder whether all of their other analyses have a shred of truth to them.
Well, we do know that Doris Kearns Goodwin is a plagarizer. Gergen is the ultimate insider. He even belongs to Bohemian Grove.
You say this so clearly and well and it fits like the proverbial glove with everything we have seen, see now and can possibly project to see in the future about O. Can you move to NV for awhile and run for Harry Reid’s senate seat?
It’s called fait accompli’
Lieberman bragged about Obama not mentioning the PO, and the Opologist commenters on Huffpo consoled themselves that a PO would be introduced as a budgetary issue in reconciliation.
At least Taibbi is telling it like he sees it. I dare say, most of the others report from the WH lense.
OT —
Elizabeth Warren has been nominated for the 2010 MSN butterfly award, you can vote for her here:
http://msnawards.onlinepromo.com/
Spammy got my comment.
nevermind, it’s there now
WSJ: Goldman Fueled AIG’s Gambles
If all these Obots are upset about Taibbi, imagine how they would have reacted to Hunter Thompson in his prime.
ZOMG! Obama takes a brave and controversial stand:
Oh, wait:
Obama didn’t speak out until after even the fundies were condemning the Ugandan bill. Some “fierce advocate” for LGBT’s, huh?
Leave it to 0 to eloquently state the obvious. I suppose he expects an international LGBT medal for it.
He’d probably accept it with a speech against gay marriage.
Lol
As this national disaster unfolds, I can not help thinking that we are imprisoned by a fog of meaningless and unworkable political/ideological labels. I do not think that we can restructure and reframe politics until we recognize that being a “liberal” or a “progressive” or a “socialist” or a “conservative” or God knows what has become irrelevant and damaging to us and meaningful discourse. These labels have been shredded of any real meaning through all kinds of distortion and misuse. Problems are not solved by getting the right label stamped on a solution; they are solved by policies that can work in the long run. We have a USA that has a whole bunch of policies that came out with conservative, liberal labels on them and they have failed us over time. We need to elect gardeners to the WH and to congress—they understand a thing or two about “tending to the crops”.
Well the administration, progressives, conservatives are not genuinely pressing for bank regulations and they’re not addressing housing and jobs head on. Even a year ago, those items were on top of Hillary’s list. In fact, she had programs ready to go.
BTW: medicare prescription drug plans DO NOT pay for Viagra. Medicare does pay for mamograms, pap smears and cervical cancer screenings.
“Medicare to cover Viagra
Drugs treating erectile disfunction will be covered under new Medicare plan for next year. ”
Article dated 02.01.2005
http://money.cnn.com/2005/02/01/news/fortune500/viagra/
I think that is wrong. There are different drug plans in Medicare and some do pay for Viagra, but limit the prescription to 5 or 10 pills. I know because I’ve heard complaints that the plan limited how many times a person could have sex.
I’m shocked!:
Who could possibly have seen that coming?
Puts a whole new twist on that doesn’t it?
Robbing Hoods – they take from the poor and keep it.
McCain had adopted Hillary’s idea of HOLC. Obama oppposed it. And, progressives still didn’t realize that having Obama would destroy the Democratic brand.
The purpose of Obama is to destroy the Democratic brand.
djmm
oh, you know I tried to refi from 7 to 4 1/2 and could qualify but the “fees” made it not worthwhile at all … I’d breakeven on the fees about the time I paid the loan off
Off-topic blast for a mini-sec: Go Annise (for Houston’s next mayor) GO! 🙂
Go Annise Go!
Local news just said she was leading by over 10 points, and polls getting ready to close. GO ANNISE!
BTW, CNN is going to live interview her at 9 pm, I hear.
Hey Edwardian! Go Annise!
Hiya Seriously! I’m sooooo stoked for Annise. There better be NO surprises here. Mayoral-elect Parker or bust!
Real time results:
http://abclocal.go.com/ktrk/elections/local/results
“left leaning government”? What an euphemism! Sounds like someone leaned on Salmon- who originally agreed with Taibbi on substance.
1% reporting
* Parker
*
33,945
* 51%
* Locke
*
32,623
* 49%
wow, that’s tight
tighter… 50/50 (though still only 1% reporting)
Yeah. Polls here closed not long ago. Right now the early “returns” are from early voting and absentee ballots. Go Annise Go!
I know — I’m f/ here 🙂
If the polls hold true, she’ll win.
All these Obologists remind me of Madoff’s interior decorator defending Bernie for having old furniture.
By the way, where were the fauxgressive Obamapologists when in Obama’s May 21 speech in front of the constitution he proposed his new policy of prolonged detention (i.e., indefinite imprisonment without trial). Not just your average power grab, but worse than even GWB’s. Seriously, after that I can’t understand how even the most powerful kool-aid IV can keep you in hopeyville. They’re truly loony.
And talk about irony. Right in front of the constitution. It’s change, and you can fucking believe in it. Suckers.
0zero is far worse — because his cult followers will forgive and offer excuses for things that if GWB were the one to push the envelope on trashing the Constitution — these same 0bots would be out protesting.
The democrat party is dead and buried in Chicago — where the grave robbers are busy.
What we see is the Zombie Dem party — for the Zombies who follow their messiah.
Thanks so much for the post, BB. Now if only Taibbi – who was only too happy to pied piper Rolling Stone’s readers over the cliff for Obama – would finally do his due diligence and actually RESEARCH Barack “Barry Soetoro” Obama and his history, as he should have done in the first place. Taibbi might actually have the cajones to do the story, and it would be the story of the century!