On Obama's Sellout (Matt Taibbi's counter to the American Prospect article)

[spiritual_gunfighter]

On Obama’s Sellout

"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."


When we went to print with the latest Rolling Stone piece about Obama’s economic hires, a couple of my sources advised me to expect some nastiness in the way of a response from Obama apologists. One jokingly suggested that there would be a waiting period to see if anyone even read the piece first, and only if there was enough negative buzz would I start getting hit with the charges of being an irresponsible conspiracy theorist, factually sloppy, and so on.

Well, weeks after the piece came out, that process is finally underway, most notably with this post on the American Prospect. And, to be perfectly honest, some of this is my own fault, since there is indeed a factual error in the piece — a minor biographical detail that identifies Bob Rubin’s son Jamie as a former Clinton diplomat. There is in fact a James Rubin who was a diplomat in the Clinton White House, but that James Rubin is not the James Rubin I’m referring to in the piece.

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.


http://trueslant.com/matttaibbi/2009/12/12/on-obamas-sellout-bailout-tarp-rubin-goldman-sachs-robert-bob-tim-geithner-hamilton-project-derivatives-financial-reform-citibank/#more-1170

[polichick]

1. Thanks - give the apologists an inch and they take a hundred miles. nt

[chill_wind]

2. K & R. n/t

[Vinnie From Indy]

3. It seems obvious that the intent of the attacks is to nullify all of what Taibbi wrote

which should be seen by most reasoning folks for what it is - a smear job. That being said, Taibbi does nobody any favors by making such a silly mistake. It has given the apologists exactly what they need to bend the weak-minded to their viewpoint.

The fact is that Taibbi wrote a credible piece on the influence of Wall Street on Obama's Admin. and his minor factual mistake is only incidental to the overall accuracy of the piece.

All readers should beware of those advocating the wholesale dismissal of Taibbi's piece based on this error.

I am glad Taibbi acknowledged his mistake and his pledge to work harder when fact checking. He obviously knows the way the game is played. If you are going to criticize the powerful, you had better try to be as bulletproof as possible in your work.

[spiritual_gunfighter]

4. I am sure Taibbi knows he left himself open to be discredited

by that stupid mistake. In the article he wonders how long it will take for the apologists to come out of the woodwork to discredit his piece. It didnt take very long.

[jgraz]

8. With or without that mistake, they would have tried to discredit him.

Look at all the other bullshit in that American Prospect hit piece. They weren't going to let a little thing like the truth keep them from kowtowing to their corporate backers.

[polichick]

11. Just like Psycho Sarah wrote off global warming science this week...

...because of a couple emails. The pea brain thinking is, okay now none of it counts.

[girl gone mad]

5. Like it or not, Taibbi's piece was fundamentally correct.

On the campaign trail, Obama promised he would stand up to Wall Street. Once elected, he appointed a cabal of Wall Street insiders to run Treasury and advise him on the economy. Rather than get tough with the corrupt banksters who created the crisis, the administration shoveled piles of money at them, no strings attached. The bailouts were sold as a means to restart lending and modify mortgages, neither of happened. Instead, the looting and speculation has continued unabated. This doesn't represent change. It's merely a continuation of the reckless and one sided anti-middle class economic policies our leaders have carried out for at least three decades now.

[chill_wind]

dupe glitch-delete

[chill_wind]

6. Good on Matt. And I think this OP deserves a wider airing, too-- Felix Salmon's article:

http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=view_all&address=103x502076

[Overseas]

7. K&R. //nt

[Jakes Progress]

9. This kind of nit-raised-to-elephant strategy

has been a long standing republican kind of argument. If the report says that a million fir trees are being felled, the right wingers call foul because one of the trees is actually a pine. This is their excuse to void the whole argument. The point of the article was not that Jamie worked for Clinton, but that he was what he was and did what he did. Taibbi was 100% right about that.

[jgraz]

10. K&R. Taibbi was far too nice, IMHO

He could have ripped Fenrholz to shreds for his corporate shilling. I get the feeling he was a bit embarrassed by the actual (nitpicky) error that American Prospect found.

[nashville_brook]

12. that was so well done. Taibbi rocks.

[slipslidingaway]

13. knr nt

[carincross]

14. Taibbi's Right: Obama has no progressive financial voices

I would simply note here that I continue to be astounded that Obama has had no place among his financial advisers for Nobel laureates Joe Stiglitz and Paul Krugman, or economists James Galbraith, Dean Baker or Robert Reich. And remember, it was during the Rubin/Summers reign that Glass-Steagall was revoked - precipitating the financial crisis of 2008.

[fasttense]

15. Matt Taibbi has put all the pieces of the puzzle together.

I was dumbfounded when President Obama, who campaigned as if he would put Main Street's interests ahead of Wall Street's, reappointed Berniac (like Maniac) I mean Bernanke, as Fed Chairman. It's like reappointing Greenspan and claiming you're going to regulate home loans and raise interest rates.

President Obama seems to favor baby steps of change that don't involve the economy. He's a "free" trade maniac now folks.