Yeah, We Might, George Stephanopolopoloupolus

This morning on George Stephanoploupoloulopoulus' round table, they were discussing potential Treasury Secretary Lawrence Summers. I waited for someone - anyone - to discuss how as Treasury Secretary under Clinton, Summers had a lot to do with deregulation in the late 1990s.

All four members of the round table spoke of Summers as a positive choice. They didn't defend what he said about ladies (cute as they are) not understanding science the way that men do, but they dismissed it as a stupid hangup by critics.

OK, maybe, but what about this whole deregulation thing he oversaw as Treasury Secretary. No one said anything, until George Stephanopolopolouloupoulus, in the process of changing the discussion topic said something offhandedly like, "Some liberal Democrats might ask tough questions about deregulation."

Yeah, we might. And everyone should, no? Other than the right-wing racists who want to blame the housing crisis on ACORN and the poor black people with mortgages, hasn't pretty much every economist worth just about anything cited deregulation as the primary cause of our current economic meltdown? I mean, hell, even Alan Greenspan had a "Well, who knew that greed would keep people from protecting these corporations?" mea culpa.

Lawrence Summers might be the smartest man on earth, and I'm sure he understands many things about economics I never will. But he was also desperately wrong in the late 1990s. If he's renamed Treasury Secretary, it'll be like Bill Kristol, the pundit most wrong about just about everything he's ever said on television, continuing to get punditry and editorial jobs.

Shit. Lawrence Summers is totally gonna be Secretary of the Treasury.

Anyway, George Stephanopoloupolupolupous, I was very disappointed that you didn't have a voice on your round table who was willing to point out that Summers was so catastrophically wrong in the 1990s.

But then there's Robert Reich, who had a fine little ditty on TPM today. In the article he discusses what he sees as the best remedy for getting us out of our economic funk. And he does a nice job of explaining some basic ideas in terms economic dolts like myself can understand.

As Reich says, he's one of those economic advisers working with the Obama transition team, but I sure hope that his need to publish his thoughts doesn't indicate that his point of view is getting overshadowed in the private sessions.