Simon Johnson: White House Failure To Appoint Elizabeth Warren Would Be The Last Straw

If nothing else from the Bush-Cheney administration was learned, it was how to overwhelm Congress's natural pace & tendencies to achieve your legislative goals. And it wasn't by working in a "bipartisan manner", giving everybody a say and all the time in the world to say it. Without strict timelines and the White House standing over the process with a taser, knocking heads together, asserting authority and insisting on party loyalty, the legislative process meanders into narcosis.



That was Dick Cheney's purpose in the Bush administration. That was his contribution, what he'd learned from his time in Congress. It worked in concert with what the Federalist Society brought to the Republican Party: The legal loopholes in the Constitution that the Executive branch could exploit. But that's another story for another day.



Obama & the DLC-Democrats learned the Bush-Cheney lesson. Obama's call for working in a bipartisan manner with Republicans on legislation was the last thing any responsible president who was serious about turning the nation around after the 8 year assault by Bush-Cheney would do. You certainly wouldn't do it with a tenuous hold on a 60-vote majority, with two of the 60 on de@th's door (Kennedy & Byrd).



But the other lesson learned well in the previous 8 years was that if you tell a Iie often and loud enough, people will eventually start to believe it.



Obama trying to work in a bipartisan way with Republicans was just that kind of I!e.
About Timothy Geithner
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