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Obama 'wasn't ready'
By Joe Nocera |
October 2, 2011, Sunday
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Print Edition
Print Edition
BLOATED, portentous, reeking of self-importance, Ron Suskind's "Confidence Men" is the most frustrating of books. A truly groundbreaking inside account of the first two years of economic policy making in the Obama White House, "Confidence Men" is at least 200 pages too long. Suskind tosses off contentious opinions about the economy as if they were accepted wisdom. He introduces characters who lack even a marginal connection to his narrative. There's not a blind alley he won't stroll down, at least for a while.
Here's what else "Confidence Men" is, though: tough-minded in its assessment of the men (and they were all men) whose advice the president listened to when he first took office; penetrating in its analysis of why the administration's approach to the country's economic ills has been so lackluster; and ruthless in its judgment of Barack Obama himself, who Suskind bluntly says "wasn't ready" to be president, so deficient in even the most rudimentary leadership skills that it took him over a year to realize that his White House was in chaos.
Almost in spite of itself, "Confidence Men" is an important addition to the growing library of books about this president. It tells you things that you didn't know before. Very few of those things reflect well on Obama and his initial team.
The typical inside-the-White-House account - by which I mainly mean the books by Bob Woodward, who more or less owns the genre - has an omniscient quality, the author recreating scenes as if he'd been in the room.
"Confidence Men" has its share of fly-on-the-wall episodes, but to his everlasting credit, Suskind doesn't really go in for phony omniscience. He savages several people he clearly spent time interviewing, starting with Obama's former chief economic adviser, Larry Summers, and Timothy Geithner, his Treasury secretary. And he's more than willing to step outside his recreated scenes to conduct interviews, in which Obama aides and allies tell truths that are genuinely painful to hear.
"Obama is smart, but smart is not enough," says Paul Volcker, former Federal Reserve chairman, who, in Suskind's account, was used as cover whenever Obama wanted to appear tough on banks. About the administration's support of the so-called Volcker Rule, which was supposed to prevent the "too big to fail" banks from trading for their own accounts, he said, "They say they're for it, but their hearts are not in it."
"You can't run a policy based on a misdirection, on a fiction," says Elizabeth Warren, who, as a special adviser to the Treasury secretary, set up the new Consumer Financial Protection Bureau. "I don't know what the president is thinking. ... He meets with bankers. He doesn't meet with me. But if he's involved in this at all, he's got to know that his angry words at Wall Street, at their recklessness and dangerous incentives in compensation... that he can't just say that sort of thing, and then dump money in their laps and be credible."
No adult in charge
Peter Orszag, the president's first director of the Office of Management and Budget, tells Suskind about a dinner he had with Summers in May 2009, in the midst of several crises, during which Summers said: "We're home alone. There's no adult in charge. Clinton would never have made these mistakes." When Suskind confronts Summers about this statement, he first gives a blustery denial and then tries, unconvincingly, to explain it away. Suskind makes the sad point that Obama, who never lost his high regard for Summers, didn't realize how little regard Summers had for him. (Summers and others in the book have since asserted that their comments were distorted or taken out of context.)
Given Suskind's background as a business journalist - he spent a chunk of his career at The Wall Street Journal - it was perhaps inevitable that he would emphasize Obama's lack of management skills. But this serves him well: He makes a persuasive case that Obama's inability to manage his own White House is a critical reason the administration has struggled to devise coherent economic policies.
Surprisingly, the book has an upbeat ending. Most of the original members of Obama's economic team depart. But recent evidence that the president has truly changed is mixed. Obama has 13 months to prove Suskind right.
Here's what else "Confidence Men" is, though: tough-minded in its assessment of the men (and they were all men) whose advice the president listened to when he first took office; penetrating in its analysis of why the administration's approach to the country's economic ills has been so lackluster; and ruthless in its judgment of Barack Obama himself, who Suskind bluntly says "wasn't ready" to be president, so deficient in even the most rudimentary leadership skills that it took him over a year to realize that his White House was in chaos.
Almost in spite of itself, "Confidence Men" is an important addition to the growing library of books about this president. It tells you things that you didn't know before. Very few of those things reflect well on Obama and his initial team.
The typical inside-the-White-House account - by which I mainly mean the books by Bob Woodward, who more or less owns the genre - has an omniscient quality, the author recreating scenes as if he'd been in the room.
"Confidence Men" has its share of fly-on-the-wall episodes, but to his everlasting credit, Suskind doesn't really go in for phony omniscience. He savages several people he clearly spent time interviewing, starting with Obama's former chief economic adviser, Larry Summers, and Timothy Geithner, his Treasury secretary. And he's more than willing to step outside his recreated scenes to conduct interviews, in which Obama aides and allies tell truths that are genuinely painful to hear.
"Obama is smart, but smart is not enough," says Paul Volcker, former Federal Reserve chairman, who, in Suskind's account, was used as cover whenever Obama wanted to appear tough on banks. About the administration's support of the so-called Volcker Rule, which was supposed to prevent the "too big to fail" banks from trading for their own accounts, he said, "They say they're for it, but their hearts are not in it."
"You can't run a policy based on a misdirection, on a fiction," says Elizabeth Warren, who, as a special adviser to the Treasury secretary, set up the new Consumer Financial Protection Bureau. "I don't know what the president is thinking. ... He meets with bankers. He doesn't meet with me. But if he's involved in this at all, he's got to know that his angry words at Wall Street, at their recklessness and dangerous incentives in compensation... that he can't just say that sort of thing, and then dump money in their laps and be credible."
No adult in charge
Peter Orszag, the president's first director of the Office of Management and Budget, tells Suskind about a dinner he had with Summers in May 2009, in the midst of several crises, during which Summers said: "We're home alone. There's no adult in charge. Clinton would never have made these mistakes." When Suskind confronts Summers about this statement, he first gives a blustery denial and then tries, unconvincingly, to explain it away. Suskind makes the sad point that Obama, who never lost his high regard for Summers, didn't realize how little regard Summers had for him. (Summers and others in the book have since asserted that their comments were distorted or taken out of context.)
Given Suskind's background as a business journalist - he spent a chunk of his career at The Wall Street Journal - it was perhaps inevitable that he would emphasize Obama's lack of management skills. But this serves him well: He makes a persuasive case that Obama's inability to manage his own White House is a critical reason the administration has struggled to devise coherent economic policies.
Surprisingly, the book has an upbeat ending. Most of the original members of Obama's economic team depart. But recent evidence that the president has truly changed is mixed. Obama has 13 months to prove Suskind right.
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