In recent days, some in the liberal blogosphere have celebrated Matt Taibbi's most recent piece in Rolling Stone, called "Obama's Big Sellout," while others have criticized it as conspiracy theorist, gonzo, and lacking in facts, among other things.
The most prominent criticism came from the American Prospect, in a piece that Meteor Blades has actually been quoting. More on that below the fold.
Today, Taibbi published a response on his blog to the American Prospect's criticism. If you don't mind getting your feelings hurt, follow me below the fold.
Blockquotes updated b/c of fair use complaints, and now with necessary rec list update
Taibbi is not gentle on the people who criticize him. However, I'll try to stay as neutral as possible in writing this (even though I do like Taibbi's writing a lot, although I'm trying to have an open mind about him). We should not let this divide us - there is no reason why the discussion in the comments can't be calm and intelligent and respectful.
In case you haven't read it, here's the dumbed down, cut down summary of it: Obama's economic team is filled with the same people who caused the crisis we're currently in, and they pretty much all lead back to Bob Rubin, the one man Taibbi asserts is more responsible for the crisis than anyone else. All the while, Obama's alleged progressive ideals and progressive advisors are being thrown to the wayside. (My summary really can't do it justice however you view it, it's something you should read on your own here.)
So let's start with the criticism from the American Prospect. What Meteor Blades has quoted on Daily Kos is this (I've trimmed it down):
* Jamie Rubin. James P. Rubin is a former Assistant Secretary of State in the Clinton Administration and not Bob Rubin's son. He informally helped Hillary Clinton transition into her role as Secretary of State. James S. Rubin is Bob Rubin's son, and had a similarly unofficial role in the economic transition. Neither were on staff, on the advisory boards, or on an agency review team...
* "Neither did Karen Kornbluh, who had served as Obama's policy director and was instrumental in crafting the Democratic Party's platform." The reasons why Kornbluh didn't get a job remain unclear, but she lost her influence earlier in the year while Obama campaign and she remained in Washington as his Senate Office policy director and later at the DNC, where she played an important role by crafting the 2008 Democratic platform. She currently serves as U.S. Ambassador to the Organization for Economic Co-Operation and Development. [Updated]
* Michael Froman. His connection to Obama is through their time together on the Harvard Law Review, not through Rubin. He did indeed once work for Rubin, and was a member of Obama's transition advisory board; he was not on the transition staff. His portfolio is international economic policy, he does not participate in domestic financial policymaking except in that strategic role; of late his main focus has been managing economic negotiations with China.
* "Geithner, in other words, is hired to head the U.S. Treasury by an executive from Citigroup — Michael Froman." Froman didn't hire Geithner, Obama did, and the move had been expected long before Froman came on board the transition -- Froman had little to do with it other than aiding in vetting. Geithner had impressed Obama while briefing him during the crisis when he was President of the New York Fed and had been a senior Treasury official during the Clinton administration. He has never worked for a bank...
* "Even more outrageous, it specifically prohibited Congress from rejecting tax giveaways to Wall Street, as it did last year, by removing all congressional oversight of future bailouts." The legislation actually only allows federal regulators to use funds taxed from banks to assist them in a crisis; if they want to use taxpayer money, Congress can say no.
That is not the entire piece, but it is the bulk of it. The write also talks about how a piece that is as (supposedly) conspiracy-laden as Taibbi's discredits the left.
Taibbi has provided a lengthy response, which I'll selectively quote in brief, for no other reason than it's a damn long blog post:
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.
Then there’s this bit about Michael Froman, the Citigroup executive who was Obama’s economic headhunter during the transition:
His connection to Obama is through their time together on the Harvard Law Review, not through Rubin. He did indeed once work for Rubin, and was a member of Obama’s transition advisory board; he was not on the transition staff.
Again, this is exactly what I reported. I reported that Froman was Obama’s former Harvard classmate, that he had later worked for Rubin, and that he had introduced Obama to Rubin. I think what this person is trying to say is that it’s wrong to suggest that Froman was a Rubin connection when in fact it was Rubin who was a Froman connection. Or something like that. Actually, I’m not sure what he’s trying to say. Again, the point of the article was that a lot of Obama’s key hires have close ties to Rubin. And Froman, who’s held important roles in both the transition and in the White House, certainly qualifies on that front. So what’s the issue here?
And just for clarification, here's the excerpt of Taibbi's original article for Rolling Stone that is being referred to:
Leading the search for the president's new economic team was his close friend and Harvard Law classmate Michael Froman, a high-ranking executive at Citigroup. During the campaign, Froman had emerged as one of Obama's biggest fundraisers, bundling $200,000 in contributions and introducing the candidate to a host of heavy hitters — chief among them his mentor Bob Rubin, the former co-chairman of Goldman Sachs who served as Treasury secretary under Bill Clinton. Froman had served as chief of staff to Rubin at Treasury, and had followed his boss when Rubin left the Clinton administration to serve as a senior counselor to Citigroup (a massive new financial conglomerate created by deregulatory moves pushed through by Rubin himself).
Again, from Taibbi's blog post (and to clarify, all of the blockquotes within Taibbi's piece are from The American Prospect piece):
Then there’s this:
"It’s the sweetheart deal of the century, putting generations of working-stiff taxpayers on the hook to pay off Bob Rubin’s fuck-up-rich tenure at Citi." Actually, the U.S. structural deficit and resultant national debt is mainly a hangover from the Bush Administration, with economic remedies to the financial crisis and the recession making a relatively small piece of the pie. Obama will be rolling back most of Bush’s tax cuts for the wealthy, but Taibbi deigns not to mention that.
I have no idea what he’s talking about here. I was referring specifically to the Citigroup bailout, which was indeed a sweetheart deal and does indeed put working-stiff taxpayers on the hook to pay for Bob Rubin’s fuckups. Not generally speaking, not metaphorically speaking, but literally. Rubin encouraged Citi to leverage up to invest in subprime crap; it blew up; we’re paying for it. I’m not sure what the factual issue is here.
If you read nothing else, read the conclusion of Taibbi's piece, which pretty much sums it all up:
Again, I do absolutely admit to mixing up that biographical passage about Jamie Rubin. But the rest of these issues are not issues of fact but differences of opinion. I understand the argument that the fact that Obama happened to name a dozen or so people with ties to Bob Rubin to key posts does not indicate a conspiracy, and undoubtedly I left out a great many good things that Obama has done, even in the realm of economic policy. But it’s not my job to give equal time to both the naughty and nice lists.
It is my job to point out that many of the same people who bear direct responsibility for the financial crisis were given positions of great power in the Obama White House, and that in many important ways the Obama appointments represented a resounding reaffirmation of the status quo (I didn’t even mention the renomination of Ben Bernanke), and the exact opposite of "change." One can argue about the extent to which this is true, but I don’t think the facts are really in question.
It seems like Taibbi was right when it comes to the facts except for one screw up, if his own analysis is to be trusted (and there's certainly nothing wrong with being skeptical, as long as you can back it up).
So let's have a thoughtful, calm discussion about these issues and about Taibbi. What do all of you think?
UPDATE: Thanks for sending this to the rec list, and making my day (which would have otherwise been spent entirely in textbooks and notebooks)! It's my first time if you couldn't tell...hopefully the discussion in the comments will stay mostly intelligent and reasonable, as it was earlier.
UPDATE 2: Ugh, I understand why Shiz left. The comments are disgusting - I've got a headache from trying to read as many of them as I could.