"ELIZABETH WARREN TO JOIN OBAMA TEAM...." Steve Benen Gets It.

[Cha]

"It's been difficult keeping up with the rumors in recent weeks about Elizabeth Warren and her possible role in the Obama administration. Atrios joked the other day, after a Fox News report that Warren would be the interim head of the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau, "Went to bed, Warren interim. Woke up, she wasn't. Went for a walk, now she is again."

And soon after, Fox News retracted its report and she wasn't again.

As of this morning, however, we finally know with confidence what's going to happen. ABC's Jake Tapper broke the story last night, reporting that President Obama will name Elizabeth Warren to "a special position reporting to both him and to the Treasury Department," tasked with heading the effort to get the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau -- which was Warren's idea -- up and running.

There are lingering questions about the details, but Tapper's report has been widely confirmed.

The decision, which Mr. Obama is to announce this week, would allow Ms. Warren, a Harvard law professor, to effectively run the new agency without having to go through a potentially contentious confirmation battle in the Senate. The creation of the bureau is a centerpiece of the Wall Street financial overhaul that Mr. Obama signed in July.

Ms. Warren will be named an assistant to the president, a designation that is held by senior White House staff members, including Rahm Emanuel, the chief of staff. She will also be a special adviser to the Treasury secretary, Timothy F. Geithner, and report jointly to Mr. Obama and Mr. Geithner. The financial regulation law delegated to the Treasury Department the powers of the bureau until a permanent director was appointed and confirmed by the Senate to a five-year term.

This looks like very positive news. Warren is one of the nation's leading consumer advocates and experts on bankruptcy law, and has drawn fire from conservatives precisely because she's so effective in going after abusive corporate practices.

Why not just appoint her to head the commission? The White House came to believe that the Senate's dysfunction would leave Warren in limbo for months, if not longer, leaving her unable to work and the consumer-protection agency unable to function. (And if the Senate ultimately killed her nomination, it would set back the process even more.) The approach the president chose allows Warren to have the authority to start making a difference right away.

It's probably premature to draw hard conclusions until the official announcement is made and more details are available, but this isn't necessarily a mushy, split-the-difference compromise; at least it doesn't have to be if the White House does it right. Indeed, this is very likely news Warren backers should celebrate -- she'll be in a position to shape the CFPB the right way, and effectively serve as its functioning chief for quite a while. At some point down the road, the president may go ahead and nominate Warren to formally head the agency anyway.

Ideally, of course, these circuitous tactics wouldn't be necessary. The White House could nominate an overwhelmingly qualified official to a key post, and the Senate would vote on her nomination. But as Annie Lowery reminds us, the "confirmation process is broken," forcing the administration to get creative. It's bad for the country and our system of government when unprecedented Republican tactics make a branch of government this dysfunctional.

But until there's meaningful Senate reform, workarounds are necessary. In Warren's case, the solution appears to be a good one."

—Steve Benen 8:00 AM Permalink | Trackbacks | Comments (28)
http://www.washingtonmonthly.com/archives/individual/2010_09/025687.php#1824944

[OregonBlue]

1. Brilliant Obama move. She gets the job and can speak her mind. Love it.

[Cha]

2. I love how Steve Benen

gets it when so many others take the most negative route they can over this most brilliant news!

[POAS]

3. Can this really be true

"Ms. Warren will be named an assistant to the president, a designation that is held by senior White House staff members, including Rahm Emanuel, the chief of staff. She will also be a special adviser to the Treasury secretary, Timothy F. Geithner, and report jointly to Mr. Obama and Mr. Geithner. The financial regulation law delegated to the Treasury Department the powers of the bureau until a permanent director was appointed and confirmed by the Senate to a five-year term."

I've read multiple reports that this is a sham and that Warren is just there to deflect criticism of Obama. Yet from everything I have read about Ms. Warren that scenario seems extremely unlikely.

[Cha]

4. Too many want it to be

a sham so they donned their best preztel outfits and let 'er Rip!

[POAS]

5. Well I better learn to be more

discerning about what I read.

Now I have my doubts about what I read that Democrats cannot win in November. That all is lost and the GOP is going to impeach Obama.

I think I better set a spell and think on this. Too bad it's raining out, I do my best thinking lying in my hammock under my favorite Oak out back.

[Cha]

6. It's raining here too..and I have to

go out and run a bit to get ready for the last days of work.

Here's to sunny days where those who need a majority to impeach President Obama are kept back home steaming in their fields of fantasy. B-):fistbump:

[DFLforever]

7. Anyone read the comments on the article?

There are some really stupid people there, stupider than I've read anywhere except maybe yahoo.I'm thinking that they're probably Repukes playing at being liberals in order to rip apart the President and demoralize the Dems.

[Cha]

8. No, I hadn't read those comments..

but I just did and they sound like uninformed twits raging at the man.

I think I'll go on and add a nice comment about how this is what Elizabeth Warren wanted..you can add a comment too, DFLforever:hi:

[Cha]

9. This is what I wrote at the end.

Well, well, well..it turns out the President was doing exactly what Elizabeth Warren wanted and how nice that he listens to her instead of the incessant chattering on the internet.

<snip>

" Warren said the issue of a nomination had been on the table during her conversations with Obama.

"He said, 'You can get to work tomorrow if you don't care much about titles,'" she told ABC television. "I said, 'Mr. President, that's the job I want, let me go to work tomorrow. That's what I want to do.'"

On Bloomberg television she said: "If I was looking for a nomination, the time for me to say that was in conversations I had with the president."

Warren, who is is disliked by many on Wall Street for her calls to crack down on abusive lending practices by financial firms, said her main goal in taking the adviser job was to get the agency up and running.

"I'm coming to Washington to try to help get this agency started, to do the things we need to do for American families and to get these markets up and functioning," she said on Fox television. "And if I can be helpful, I don't care if you call me the dog-catcher."

http://www.reuters.com/article/idUSN1720397920100917

They ignorantly call the President "an empty suit" as they sit there hiding behind their hate bouncing off the computer.

[DFLforever]

10. Excellent, Cha,

to make that point.

That 'empty suit' shit really got to me too.. anyone using that insult at this point in time is nothing more than a freeper or a nasty leftover Puma.

I don't comment on sites other than DU. I don't like to register on-line anymore.

[bobburgster]

11. Cha, thanks for posting that.....

I had not heard it. Doesn't surprise me though....all the chatter from the Haters was another attempt to turn a positive negative.