Wonkette
Barack Obama’s first major administration appointee was the biggest dick in Washington. How can he top that with his second pick? Why by picking the biggest dick in various academic and economic circles, of course! All of the “murmurs” surrounding Treasury Secretary possibilities center around Lawrence “Larry” Summers, who held the post under Clinton from 1999 to 2001 and then ran off to be President of Harvard, where everyone hated him for his awful management style and overt disgust for all ladies. He was forced to resign. But now he might get a shot at redemption!
He’d be the perfect fit for Obama. Want change, a fresh start? Hire a notorious ex-Clintonite who masturbates to NAFTA! Need someone to draw up basic regulations for the shadow banking system? Then you need the guy who helped Alan Greenspan “silence” anyone pushing for derivatives market regulation in the 1990s! Remember folks, he got Harvard tenure at 28.
Smart!
Once and future Treasury Secretary? [Fortune]
The Woman Greenspan, Rubin & Summers Silenced [The Nation]
So, Obama now has two of the biggest dicks in Washington?
I hear that chick they elected as Governor in Alaska is pretty well-liked and good with money
Obama is so buoyant with hopeyness, he needs to anchor himself to the ground with massive sacks of shit.
With all respect to Hopey, this one blows.
Fuck this guy.
OK, but if Lanny Davis gets a position, _then_ I’m moving to Canada.
Why not just appoint Phil Graham?
AnnieGetYourFun: Oh come on, you couldn’t even see it in the Hawaiian vacation bathing suit pics, don’t just assume
Its about time we had some big dicks in the White House. Those tiny little shriveled-up dicks where getting moldy from neglect.
Holy crap, Jim, you don’t use the alt text much, but when you do it’s cold
Hey, hey, he said women suck at teh math, not Blackies at the government-thingy…Plus - stop looking backward.
AnnieGetYourFun: So I guess what they say is true. No going back for Washington…
I love alt texts so much
Why not Jesse Helms’ corpse as Chairman of Race Relations?
Summers is a hugely respected economist. Personally, I’d prefer Krugman or Volcker, but he’ll be just fine in the job. Oh boo hoo, he said genetics might have an impact on gender and intelligence. That has nothing to do with how good he’d be at running the treasury.
If anatomy is destiny, as Summers believes, does having two dicks get you closer to the Nobel Prize for Physics?
…I guess Phil Graham must have other things to do?!
Larry Summers was immensely popular amongst the student body at Harvard. Most of us were very unhappy that he was forced to leave. He was stubborn and less than diplomatic with those under him, and it made him a lot of enemies. But he also made a number of very important and very meaningful improvements to the University. Anyone who thinks he has disgust for women is woefully uninformed. Go back and read the transcript of his talk, and don’t just parrot nonsense you’ve read on the internet.
GlennBecksTaint: http://wonkette.com/25678/big-dick-cheneys-mystery-bulge
How ’bout Paul O’Neill? That would be a stick in the face of the Bushies. But there are plenty of folks who would be good for this job — Robert Reich, or Rubin, as mentioned in the article. Anyone good with nationalizing banks is fine with me.
mattbolt: Hey, the water was cold. Things contract.
Volcker.
SayItWithWookies: Rubin? Rubin? The Chairman of Citigroup? Yeah, no problems or conflicts there as far as I can see.
tdp: Admiring attempt at a civilized, thought-out comment on Wonkette. Will it work? Karl Rove projects: No.
Gramm! Phil GRAMM!
norbizness: …Graham, Gramm, Shit-bag; they are all the same to me. Whats the difference! Sheesh!!!
SayItWithWookies: ROBERT REICH ROBERT REICH ROBERT REICH!!!!!!!!!
I’m a huge fan. And he’s so cute with his beard!
How many Jews can you stuff into one cabinet? What kind of a muslin is Obama?
tdp: OOOOOOO! He made Harvard more pleasant? With a record like that, can’t he just be president, then?
I think it’s his cozy relationship with free-marketeers like Greenspan and Goldman Sachs-lackeys that scares people who live in the world where the Sun doesn’t revolve around Harvard (Earth.)
tdp:Larry Summers was immensely popular amongst the student body at Harvard. Most of us were very unhappy that he was forced to leave.
Not true.
Ha ha, one last punch in the vag for Sen. Clinton. Suck it Clinton: all your husband’s cabinent members are belong to us.
This is a change I can bereave in.
I think he’s gonna catch heat for his contention that women who were bad at math caused the financial crisis. Might be a deal breaker.
http://thesebastards.blogspot.com/
AnnieGetYourFun: No. THREE. He’s bringing the first one with him.
in his pants…
jagorev: I don’t actually care at all about his comments on ladies’ intelligence. But would they seriously consider hiring someone who was so active in deregulating everything ten years ago to draw up the new financial regulatory structures, which is the chief long-term task of the next Treasury Sec? Good luck.
jagorev: Alan Greenspan, another “highly respected” economist. You didn’t read the article in the Nation, did you?
Summers is also a freemarket/NAFTA freak. It will be the weenie Clinton years all over again.
I cannot wrap my simple lady brain around this.
i am very worried that the level of white house hotness is being reduced at an alarming rate.
this is not change i can believe in.
Not Summers, not Geithner. Gimme change Obama. Change I can believe in.
This crap ain’t cuttin’ it.
What’s with all the fleshy white guys?
youknew: What’s wrong with Geithner? He’s smart, independent, and, most importantly, hot.
Sussemilch: Ditto, or Sheila Bair, head of the FDIC
S.Luggo: Maybe (shock! horror!) Obama wasn’t really serious about being a protectionist socialist, that was just red meat for the bitters, and in reality the US will continue to be a free market/free trade economy. Please don’t tell me that surprises you.
Something is growing/sticking out of his stomach in that picture.
Did he eat a woman? Was she bad at math?!?
BruceLee5000: Um. That’s what I meant.
This is how Barry could become the black Jimmy Carter instead of the new FDR. Carter ran as an outsider, then his second appointment was Joe Califano, the Uberliberal of the JFK-LBJ Complex. I knew the outsider party was over the moment I saw it, and as a Carter-pledged candidate for delegate (with orders to lose to Mayor Daley), I was very sad.
Controversies at Harvard aside, someone less enmeshed with Clinton than Summers might be a better choice. If it has to be a Harvard man, let it be Tom Lehrer.
Whoever he picks needs to give the markets a bounce or else he puts confidence in his administration at risk. Mostly, if the market doesn’t surge after this pick, my email inbox will be flooded with all-caps messages of doom from my crazy Republican relatives, and it will annoy me.
Also, I’d rather him pick an academic than someone who used to work on Wall Street and may be handing out favors instead of cutting off nuts when needed.
As Barbie says, “Math class is tough!”
tdp: Thanks for reminding everyone to consult primary sources. Here’s the link to the transcript:
http://www.thecrimson.com/article.aspx?ref=505844
Jim, I see the honeymoon is over for Hopey here at Wonkette so when do we start calling him a warmongering asshole? Personally, I would hate any former Clinton admin officials.
Don’t get me wrong I am not a big establishment hater but I think we need a fresh vision, didn’t Hopey promise us a change? We need someone who can think outside of the Washington incestuous business cocoon. Is Hopey courageous enough to take a chance on a new vision? Rahm Emanuel and Lawrence Summers do not give me much hope. With Emanuel it is easy because his job is merely to sell Hopey’s strategy and to deal with the staffing issues but with Summers it means much more.
Life Rules #1) Assholes and Dick’s finish 1st!
Sincerely,
Richard Nixon, Attila the Hun, George W. Bush, and all of those Assholes at over Goldman Sachs, AIG et all.
Dreamer: I agree completely. I can understand why he needs an “enforcer” like Emanuel to organize the plan, but I cannot understand why ideologically he would reach back to an author of bad ideas in the 90’s. I did not just elect Hillary, after all. If this turns out to be true, will be a big disappointment.
The other realistic option was Corzine, but two GS vampires in a row would not be change we can believe in. Jeff Sachs or Stiglitz would be good. Maybe he’s keeping spots on his council of economic advisors for the eggheads and giving the mangement jobs to dicks who know how to lead people who are not snivelling sycophant graduate students.
You all are a bunch of pussies. And pussies don’t like dicks, because pussies get fucked by dicks. But dicks also fuck assholes: assholes that just want to shit on everything. Pussies may think they can deal with assholes their way. But the only thing that can fuck an asshole is a dick, with some balls.
S.Luggo: Sheila Blair? Really? Earlier this year, she was one of those “the fundamentals are strong” people: (”The capital is there to absorb the losses,” she said [of the banks]. “Some will have some bad quarters, but still overall they’re quite solvent, healthy institutions, and they’ll get through this.”)
When Indymac went belly-up, a bell-weather to the clusterfuck that was to come, instead of sounding the alarm about easy-credit, default swaps and derivatives of these casino-like banks under her charge, she fucking blamed it on “blogs.”
Another bonus Blair line, regarding the fears of a financial crisis:
I think it’s not so much banking as it is the housing sector.
Totally clueless. No. We need, at least, Krugman or Volker.
The job description for Chief of Staff requires you to be a dick head. Not a fan of Summers for Treasury. Why not Nate Silver, he’s good with numbers ;->
jagorev: gross. I have to brush my teeth after reading that. But you have a point. a point with shit covered balls, but a point none the less.
jagorev: Obviously I haven’t been following his post-Clinton career. According to Wikipedia, he and Greenspan pushed to keep derivatives deregulated, and he also tried to use connections at Treasury to pressure bond rating companies from downgrading Enron. Nice.
On a separate issue, I don’t see what’s so objectionable to some folks about having a Clinton official in at Treasury. Wasn’t the federal budget in pretty good shape during those years? What am I missing?
Well, based on the headline, I’m being considered for Treasury Secretary.
I knew that $30 campaign donation would reap benefits.
SayItWithWookies: The hands off de-regulation of the Clinton years (under Greenspan) is widely seen as propping up the lagging American economy with different asset-bubbles, basically kicking the ball down the road to the “come to Jesus moment” with Bretton-Woods 2 we are all experiencing right now. You know…the non-crazy, non-racist part of the Paultard diatribe…
Who do we write to get Brooksley Born considered for the job? Sounds like she could do a lot of good to fix the economy.
So all we need for a Treasury secretary is someone with a thorough knowledge of the economy who wasn’t in some way involved in the cycle of deregulation and greed that drove things since — oh, 1980. So Nobody? Can we all agree on Nobody?
I like to think that barry has a staffer reading wonkette and giving him quick briefings on the situation. He said he would listen to us!
problemwithcaring: Oops. My previous comment was in reply to yours, obvs.
SayItWithWookies: Now you are thinking like a change-agent.
SayItWithWookies: Natch.
Honestly, while I think Krugman the Hilltard has some lazy knee-jerk policy positions, his common sense usually outweighs all of the politick-y shit. He called the Housing Bubble - early and loudly - and was heavily lampooned as a “chicken little’ for it. People like him and Volcker were also a loud voices against the massive deregulation they saw in the financial sector.
problemwithcaring: Krugman would be awesome. If there’s anything the Bushies need to be solidly repudiated on, it’s the economy. Well — that and the budget, the war in Iraq, the neglect of Afghanistan, torture, warrantless wiretapping, putting politics above pragmatism, energy policy, overstepping their Constitutional bounds, lying to Congress, faith-based anything, and probably a few other issues. But the economy is definitely up there.
problemwithcaring: You misread both articles. The issues in the first (which was written after IndyMac had caved) were possible panic among depositors caused by weekend rumors in the blogspere about what FDIC insured institution might fail next and how such rumors might be addressed.
In the second, FDIC chief Blair was saying that shaky housing loans had been made mainly, not by FDIC insured banks, but by non-regulated entities, e.g., Countrywide.
S.Luggo: In the second, FDIC chief Blair was saying that shaky housing loans had been made mainly, not by FDIC insured banks, but by non-regulated entities, e.g., Countrywide.
Hahaha. ‘evs, dude. Washington Mutual and its $52 billion in outstanding Option-A loans was a figment of all of our imaginations and the US gov’t didn’t just spent $1.2 trillion dollars propping up “non-FDIC-insured banks” and problemiwthcaring misreads articles. Indymac was an outlier! The fundamentals are strong. Mission Accomplished!
Carry on.
Whoa . . . after the election Wonkette got all Wonky. I have no idea what the fuck any of you guys are talking about.
[My first post so come on, bite me... I mean it.]
Ohh come on what he said about women is legit…bitches.
It came in form a of question, something about the fact that there’s more women in universities than men, but strangely in math related courses there’s virtually none (as computer science student I can tell there was only one in my class of 30 and she had a moustache)… then he proceed to give rethorical answers such
-> “Women are just dum”…
-> “They don’t care about maths..”
the wohole thing was blown out proportion
Th-th-that’s not ch-change we can believe in.
I’ve got a feeling we’ll be saying that a lot over the next four years.
SayItWithWookies: Exactly. The list of people who saw the financial crisis coming is short, and those that vocalized their concerns even shorter. Perhaps we will have to instead look to having someone who understands the past errors and sees new avenues. Anyway, here is an interview with good ol’ boy Larry from back during the convention: http://www.portfolio.com/views/columns/the-world-according-to/2008/09/11/Interview-With-Larry-Summers
He talks briefly about his views concerning this whole debacle.
coffeeyesplease: Nom nom nom
Internally valid: Sorry. The picture of Larry looks like the uncircumcised head of a flaccid penis?
What about Tim Geithner? Thoughts about him?
Here are all the people he’s named to his economic advisory team:
http://tpmelectioncentral.talkingpointsmemo.com/2008/11/obama_rolls_out_economic_trans.php
Any of these could be SecTreas.
jagorev: Mamet much?
billy c: Right. Brooksley Born is the unsung hero (heroine?) of the whole debacle. Plus she has a funny name.
jagorev: Except Jennifer Granholm, of course.
I’m going to be livid if they give that job to Summers. It is a slap in the face to women. The man was an embarrassment to Harvard. I mean that takes some doing. That place is filled with windbags. He’s a pompous ass who spouts off on matters he knows nothing about and still won’t back down when proven wrong because he is always right. Sound familiar?
Come on Hopey — don’t kill my buzz before you even take office.
eatsshootsleaves: Well, yes, she’s a chick, and probably doesn’t have the arithmetical skills for the Treasury job.
OT - fantastic article about Rahm Emanuel, who actually seems to be an insane person:
http://www.rollingstone.com/politics/story/8091986/the_enforcer/
miss_emish: Actually I think a lot of people saw this coming for a long time. Right with you on doing nothing about it though.
I remember reading Liar’s Poker (1989) a few years after it came out, and Michael Lewis goes into a little digression about these new securities — mortgage-based, believe it or not. He talks about how they work, then about how new laws needed to be passed in order to get them traded legally, and how Salomon Brothers and other brokerages pushed these through. Then he mentions that a problem with organizing these securities before was that nobody knew how to value them. And then people started buying them when their returns went up, because even if it was air, they’d be fools not to get in on the action before the bubble burst.
Granted, that wasn’t the whole of the problem by far (regs got much looser over the past few years) but that was the kernel of the story, and that essential flaw never changed.
eatsshootsleaves: HAWTNESS!! Oh yea, since he has been at the FED, he expressed a “generic” concern about Wall Street casino-leveraging and the lack of regulation to curtail it. Like many on the FED, he’s somewhat of a deficit hawk, which is good, but what does that even mean anymore? He has always been tough on China (as possible; remember they own us!)
[Some people blasted him for assisting with the Paulson &Co "hurry-up bailout" of Bear Sterns/Morgan Stanley - widely panned as a costly "piece-meal" solution to a global problem. But, really, he who HASN'T opened the US FED Reserve "window" to be pilfered by a private corporation weeks before it becomes insolvent, cast the first stone.]
So, WIN!
WTF? why is hopey doing this, this isn’t the change we need, the same old douche bags we HAD?? what is he thinking and how can we make him listen to US his loyal followers (or maybe we WON’t be if he keeps this shit up!)
jagorev: Antonio VillaraiGrossa? There aren’t enough Latina news broadcasters in DC for him to diddle.
How about Barry’s Econ adviser James K. Galbraith Econ adviser James K. Galbraith? I confess my primary reason for liking him is because he hates economists as much as I do.
no_u: ok. read it. guy’s a dick.
Silly me.
Here I thought we wouldn’t need Wonkette anymore.
To whoever said we should take a look at primary sources:
Short response:
Yes, I’ve read what Summers actually said at the conference, fuck you very much you condescending twat. I could give two shits whether you liked him or not while you were at Harvard. The fact of the matter is that Summers had no idea what he was talking about.
Long response:
His fundamental argument was that innate differences in quantitative ability between the sexes explain women’s underrepresentation in physics, engineering and other fields requiring exceptional math ability. He cites research revealing not only mean differences in quantitative ability between men and women, but also greater variability in quant. ability among men compared to women (most likely referencing Benbow & Stanley, 1980, Science and their other research). He then argued that the greater variability in men’s quantitative ability translates into a greater number of men at the very top (and bottom) of the distribution of quantitative ability.
There are several problems with concluding that these results reflect genetic differences between the sexes. First, recent research finds no meaningful differences in average quantitative ability between men and women (Hyde, 2005; Science). Second, in Benbow and Stanley’s research, any influence of differential socialization and learning environment, discrimination and stereotypes was ostensibly eliminated because the participants were in seventh and eighth grade and, therefore, they had the same background in and exposure to mathematics. This is a ridiculous assertion. Gender socialization occurs quite early and stereotypes regarding gender differences in mathematical ability are prevalent and frequently inform judgments and behaviors in subtle, automatic ways–this includes the judgments and behaviors of parents, teachers, and peers. In addition, Claude Steele’s research program on stereotype threat also casts serious doubt on genetic differences in quantitative ability between men and women.
Second, his discussion of behavioral genetics was incredibly naive. The idea that genes invariably shape our abilities and behaviors without input from environmental forces is flat wrong–they interact with each other. IQ, for example, which is on the high end of hereditability, is determined by genes in optimal environments and not at all in impoverished environments (Turkeimer et al., 2003, Psych Science). Also, please don’t trot out some new fMRI study that you read about demonstrating supposed differences in brain activity or architecture between men and women. Differences in experience and learning history shape brain organization and activity levels.
New Republic says the choice is between the older, fatter Larry Summers, and a younger, svelte Larry Summers:
http://www.southparkstudios.com/
Wow, really effed up the link there. here’s the TNR article that says the choice is between Larry Summers or Larry Summers:
http://www.tnr.com/politics/story.html?id=c85b418b-5237-4f54-891f-8385243162bd
I don’t think Obama would be this stupid. Granted, Larry is a brilliant economist and was not a bad president of Harvard. He just ran the university more as a business than as a university, he wasn’t very diplomatic and just overall pissed off the faculty. I do remember that his main priority was undergrads. He wanted more advising for the undergrads and a less decentralized university. But uultimately what broke him was the endless building and pushing the university into Allston. People weren’t too thrilled.
Oh yeah and when he got his Honorary Degree at 2007 commencement, we (the undergrads) gave him a standing ovation and chanted his name for 5 minutes. I’m not sure if 1600 of us were doing it bc we liked him or because we wanted to piss off Dean Gross and Derek Bok
I vote for Mankiw. He’s as free market as you can get but so cute!
Summers was racist as well as sexist. He drove lots of black intellectuals away from Harvard when he was there. Yes, black intellectuals at Harvard, not unlike Barack Obama. If Obama appoints him. He’s goin’ from hopey to dopey.
BruceLee5000: Initially, I thought this comment was in response to the question ‘How many Jews this guy be bringin’?', and I was trying to figure out if you were making fun of Joe Lieberman or something. Then I scrolled back up and thought you were talking about fleshy white guys. When I finally clicked on the re:link to get to the right post, your response made much more sense, but I was a little disappointed — I enjoy the novelty of imagining Obama with fleshy jews in his pants.
Is there some reason we CAN’T have Krugman?
hobgoblin of little minds: Oh, yeah, then why can’t women read a map then, huh?
I would not object at all to Robert Reich in some cabinet position, as long as he brings along Conan to sweep through the halls of congress, kicking ass and taking names.
“You have the right to be my bitch!”
Summers is a heinous gasbag. And I bet Dr. Cornel West will be disappointed in Hopey as it was Summers who basically drove West away from Harvard and back into the loving arms of Princeton.
Please, no, Barry, don’t let the misogynist terrorists win. What happened to the Gov. Corzine pick for this spot. A much better choice, imo.