Dumbest Political Move of 2010: Obama Airlocks Elizabeth Warren

For those of you unfamiliar with the term “airlock”, it’s corporate lackey speak for what management does to an inconvenient subordinate.  They need to make a change and there’s a person they have to get rid of but can’t, or not quite yet.  The person is in the way.  So, he or she is given a job in a remote office with a special title, like Vice President of the Office of Competitive Research Analysis or something.  The office has no power, no budget to speak of and the person in charge rarely gets an invitation to any important meetings.  He or she just sits in the office, sharpening pencils, surfing the web and waiting for the airlock to open on the other side.

In Elizabeth Warren’s case, she will be “Assistant to the President & Special Adviser to the Secretary of the Treasury on the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau”.

Jake Tapper has all of the details:

President Obama will announce this week that Elizabeth Warren, the Harvard Law School professor who first proposed the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau, will be named to a special position reporting to both him and to the Treasury Department and tasked with heading the effort to get the new federal agency standing, a knowledgeable Democrat told ABC News.

Warren’s title will be Assistant to the President & Special Adviser to the Secretary of the Treasury on the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau.

Warren currently chairs the Congressional Oversight Panel of the Troubled Assets Relief Program and has been seen by many on the Left as a force for greater accountability and transparency, and a check against the forces in the Obama administration more closely allied with the financial sector. Many officials in that sector eye her warily as too anti-business.

At his press conference Friday, President Obama noted that “the idea for this agency was Elizabeth Warren’s,” a reference to an essay she wrote in 2007 in Democracy: A Journal of Ideas in which she proposed a “Financial Product Safety Commission.”

Isn’t that charming?  She wrote “an essay”.  Can’t you just see it?

President Obama: Lizzy, I was soooo impressed with your essay.

Warren: Thank You Mr. President.  As I hope I’ve made clear, the middle class has been declining in discretionary income over the past 40 years due to a number of factors including deregulation of the financial industry.  If you turn to page 12, you will find a graph…

President Obama: Ha-Ha-Ha!  That’s fine, Lizzy.  Know what I’m going to do?  I’m going to make you my Extra Special Assistant at the agency that you imagined in your essay.  How does that sound, Lizzy?

<crickets>

It sounds stupid.

As do the excuses that are made for not appointing her and going through the confirmation process.  “Ohhh, woe is me.  My nominees are all stuck in committee.  Those nasty, wasty Congresspeople are so meeeeeeean.”

Look, here’s the bottom line: If she goes through the confirmation process, that means the office would have power.  If she doesn’t, that means it has NO power.

What do you take us for?  Utter morons?

So what if the banking industry piles on?  The public hates, Hates, HATES the banks.  If you do something they don’t like, that makes you golden.  So, if you do not choose to take them on, what should we conclude?

That’s right.  Democrats are cowardly @#$#$@ of @#$@%@.  And when we go to the polls in November, what should we do?

Vote for Greens, socialists, independents.  Anyone but right wing nutcases and Democrats.

Consider it an airlock.