Summers may be off of Treasury short list!

[Imperialism Inc.]

For those who have wondered why people were not just sitting back and letting Obama make whatever appointments he wanted, this is why. Bloggers, women's groups and progressive magazine editorialists made their concerns known and it appears they have had an effect. My biggest complaint with the article I am posting is that it gives too little space to all the many policy reasons for not supporting Summers and focuses on his past sexist comment. Not that the comment isn't troublesome. It is just that I think there are plenty of good reasons for him to be off the list above and beyond those comments and the article doesn't spend much time detailing them.

Summers may be off of Treasury short list
http://www.politico.com/news/stories/1108/15612.html

(snip)
The women’s opposition to a possible Summers’ appointment was the explanation some Democratic sources are hearing for why the Obama transition team has crossed Summers off their list. The Obama team doesn’t want to kick off its administration with a controversy nor go head-to-head with an important constituency when there are other qualified candidates, political operatives speculate.

Reports that Summers is no longer in the running are widespread, but not everyone agrees that his problems with women have sealed his fate.

Kim Gandy, president of the National Organization for Women, said there are other reasons to oppose Summers, citing his involvement in Clinton-era policies that many say contributed to the current economic woes.
“There are a lot of reasons that people oppose Larry Summers,” she said. NOW has not lobbied the Obama transition to scuttle Summers, she said, but instead put forward names of qualified women for the slot.
(more at link)

[54anickel]

1. Good. Not because of NOW but his past policies. He was easily swayed by monied interest while in

Clinton's administration.

[bread_and_roses]

2. I sure hope this is so

Although it will remain a nagging burr under my skin that he was ever on ANY list much less a short one. His detestable comments aside, what possible reason could there be for putting someone who facilitated the very plundering Profiteers who are so merrily now divesting the citizens of our combined past, present, and future common resources to feather their own nests?

[rucky]

3. I don't think we'd want a self-professed shopaholic in the Treasury

[annabanana]

5. phhht..

:P

[annabanana]

4. eternal vigilance, folks. . .eternal vigilance

Jefferson, among many, was onto something there.

"Those who expect to reap the blessings of freedom must, like men, undergo the fatigue of supporting it." -- Thomas Paine: The American Crisis, No. 4, 1777

“There is no safety for honest men except by believing all possible evil of evil men.” -- Edmund Burke

"If ye love wealth greater than liberty, the tranquility of servitude greater than the animating contest for freedom, go home from us in peace. We seek not your counsel, nor your arms. Crouch down and lick the hand that feeds you; and may posterity forget that ye were our countrymen." -- Samuel Adams

"If a nation values anything more than freedom, it will lose its freedom; and the irony of it is that if it is comfort or money that it values more, it will lose that too." -- Somerset Maugham

"Those who profess to favor freedom, yet deprecate agitation, are men who want crops without plowing up the ground. They want rain without thunder and lightening. They want the ocean without the awful roar of its many waters. This struggle may be a moral one; or it may be a physical one; or it may be both moral and physical; but it must be a struggle. Power concedes nothing without a demand. It never did and it never will." -- Frederick Douglass

etc etc etc

[seafan]

6. Hoping that Robert Reich is on the shortlist. I am more impressed with his abilities each day.

Formerly the Secretary of Labor under Clinton, Reich is very progressive in his outlook and has a razor-sharp analytical ability, integrity and passionate communication skills. He would be a fine Secretary of the Treasury.

[Peace Patriot]

7. If this is how things are going on Obama team, re Treasury, HALLELUJAH!

"...citing his involvement in Clinton-era policies that many say contributed to the current economic woes."

This is NOW's Gandy speaking, but still, it's good to hear that a powerful group like NOW is lobbying on this basis, for real economic policy change. I was worried that the old Clintonites with their failed ideas were having too much of a say.* Clinton neoliberalism led straight to Bushwhackism (massive looting). I respect the people who ran the Clinton government for their competence and relative (to Bushwhacks) lack of corruption. They ran agencies like FEMA and the U.S military, for that matter, efficiently and fairly. The only reason the Bushwhacks could count on the military was that the Clintonites had been in charge for eight years--then the Bushwhacks ran it right into the ground; you might criticize Clinton for laying the groundwork for the invasion of Iraq--or for that horror, Plan Colombia--but Clinton people, when given a task, DID THEIR JOB. I just hope that the tasks that Obama gives his people are BETTER--not to take from the poor and give to the rich (Clinton "welfare reform") but to even things out, level the playing field, restore fairness to the tax structure, and curtail the global corporate predators who are oppressing us all and killing the planet. Clinton environmental policy was no great shakes either--very pro-corporate in many respects. Competent people, bad policy. That is the unfortunate story of the Clinton era (and also failure to UNDO the deregulation and tax unfairness started by the Reaganites).

-------

*(I have been very alarmed by the possible appointment of Chiquita International's death squad attorney, Eric Holder, as Attorney General. Holder was the high-priced corporate attorney who got Chiquita execs off with a hand-slap, for paying $1.7 million to rightwing death squads in Colombia, to murder some FOUR THOUSAND union leaders and workers over a seven year period. We don't need to send that kind of signal to South America--that workers' lives don't count, and that corporate crime of this magnitude receives immunity here. Lord, of all the attorneys in the U.S., this is all they can come up with as chief law enforcement officer? A corporate scofflaw attorney? I hope not.)

[TexasObserver]

8. I knew he was DOA. He was chum in the water, and the result predictable.

By putting Summers on the list, the Obama team had to know they'd draw fire from all manner of women groups and women's supporters. By being responsive to the fire drawn, the Obama team proves it is responsive, and gains a little credibility for doing so.

It was a smart move including Summers in the initial list, and it's a smart move dumping him from it.

I never expected him to make the cut, because there's no way Obama is going to appoint some jackass who offended every woman in America.

[Imperialism Inc.]

10. If that is the case then I expect Tim Geithner as the pick.

Tim had some previous dealings with Summers and Rubin under Clinton. I don't see him as much better frankly. If Summers was a ruse, which I have considered myself, then it is surely to cover up for Geithner.

[CTyankee]

11. He was on my plane to Madrid on Iberia on Oct. 24th this year.

It was interesting. He was barking into his cell phone about "what do you hear from treasury?" and "I'm advising Obama on this so I need toknow." Then he gave his email address and when I could hear it as something lms @harvard.edu I took a look at him and it was Summers! He was such a blowhard and an a-hole. Very loud and sloppy looking. And what an idiot to be talking about his ties to Obama! He must have felt very inadequate to talk that way.

At any rate he got on the First Class and we got on in Economy.

I googled later and found out he gave a speech in Madrid to some global economics groups (????). Corporate sponsors included Iberia so I guess that's how he got his First Class seat.

[annabanana]

9. Sunday evening kick. . . .n/t

[zuul9]

12. He would be a very loyal cabinet member... unlike others

Summers supported Obama from the start and has been advising him from the start of the campaign. A single gaff completed unrelated to his prospective job shound't be a bar. As for NOW, they should go make their demands to Hillary. Obama owes them NOTHING!

[Imperialism Inc.]

13. There is much much more than the "gaffe" at issue here.

You apparently didn't read my post very carefully and don't know much about Summers' policy history. Use the search feature at the top of the page.