When he spoke, the oceans rose. When he walked, the ground shook. When he invoked hope, the world wept rivers. Here was the ultimate emancipator, the destroyer of evil, the great faith healer. On November 4, 2008, Barack Obama stormed the world stage like a Category Five hurricane, pulverising anything stupid enough to stand in the way. Riding on his coat-tails, the Democratic Party won huge majorities in the House of Representatives and the Senate, promising economic recovery, financial reform, healthcare overhaul and better American ties with the world. History was being made, here and now.
As I write this, President Obama?s approval index, according to Rasmussen Reports, stands at minus 20, a polar opposite to his plus 28 when he took power on January 20, 2009. Guantanamo Bay detention facility, which he ordered shut on Day One, remains open for business. Unemployment, which stood at 7.8% in January 2009 has swelled to 9.1%. Wall Street, which he vowed to tame, is doing roaring business. Democrats have lost the reins of the House of Representatives and lost their filibuster-proof majority in the Senate. Meanwhile, George W Bush?s Iraq Surge bore fruit, clearing decks for an American pullout under Obama. US Drone strikes in AfPak have increased 10-fold, and full-fledged insurgencies have bloomed on both sides of the Durand Line.
Whatever happened in the last two and a half years since a 2-million strong sea of humanity converged at Washington?s National Mall on a drizzling day to see the messiah of hope take his oath of office?
Pulitzer Prize-winning author Ron Suskind?s Confidence Men: Wall Street, Washington, and the education of a President
attempts to pinpoint what went wrong with the Obama administration since the November Rain of 2008. Suskind traces the origins of the campaign for hope and change, the election and what followed until early 2011. As the title signals, the focus is on Obama?s inner circle of advisors who hand-held him during his Presidency as well as the financial system that enveloped Washington. Suskind claims he interviewed over 200 people over 746 hours to write the book, including the US President. Sadly, for something produced after such enormous effort, Confidence Men falls far short of being an impartial probe into finding the reasons behind the failures of the Obama Presidency, and degenerates quickly into witch-hunting and name-calling.
Confidence Men starts off on a lighter note, set amid Obama?s campaign. Despite his early setbacks in taking on Hillary Clinton, Obama comes across a man confident of his destiny. Even before he secured the nomination, and much before Wall Street unravelled, Obama gained a working knowledge of the flawed US financial system, thanks to his banker buddies. Armed with this advance knowledge of the calamity which would soon befall America, Obama could plan ahead for his Presidency.
Ruskind?s tone shifts to derision when he comes to Obama?s post-Inauguration decisions. According to Confidence Men, it was Obama?s earliest decision in choosing a ?B-Team? that cost him the most. Suskind spews venom at Obama?s early choices, specifically chief of national economic council Lawrence Summers, treasury secretary Timothy Geithner and White House chief of staff Rahm Emanuel. Ruskind places the blame for Obama?s mis-steps at the doors of these three men. The trio, ridiculed as the confidence men who drove the Presidency into a ditch, are pilloried till the last chapter and beyond. If one were to believe the author, Obama would have been in a better shape today had he chosen Suskind?s nominees, which includes former US Federal Reserve chairman Paul Volcker and economist Austan Goolsbee.
Confidence Men takes aim at the critical decisions (or rather lack of decisions) in the early part of the Presidency. The whole book revolves around the simple fantasy that breaking up big banks and bringing Wall Street down to its knees in early-2009 would have secured America and redeemed Obama?s Presidency. This, unfortunately, is the same premise behind the ongoing Occupy Wall Street campaign, led by the American left (according to the movement?s website), joined by the mainstream, and extended moral support by the Democratic Party. However, like the occupiers, Suskind misses the fact that apart from the pleasure of seeing millionaires rub their noses in dirt, an assault on the financial system would have achieved little else, at a time when at least seven million Americans are out of job.
Wall Street is clearly Suskind?s biggest bug-bear. According to the author, the President must have used his early political capital to break up big banks and bring Wall Street down to its knees. The author alleges that Summers and Geithner stood in the way of such reform, despite the President’s clear directive that they break up Citi, ?slow-walking? the proposal until Obama forgot about it.
Why would the director of the national economic council and the treasury secretary sabotage orders from the President? Suskind has his poison pen ready: Because they were beholden to Wall Street. The author attacks Summers for his previous job as treasury secretary during the Clinton administration when he repealed the Glass-Steagall Act. This makes him an enemy in Suskind?s eyes and unfit to serve the President. Summers sure had his brush with controversies, and like many other eminent economists in 1998 including the-then Fed chairman Alan Greenspan, had batted against regulating derivatives. Confidence Men asserts that Summers hijacked White House economic discussions into a ?debate society? and positioned himself between the President and the rest of the team, allowing only his viewpoints to filter through.
Geithner too comes in for withering criticism. Suskind paints the treasury secretary with a broad tar brush, suggesting he was a government servant serving the interests of the Wall Street. He is charged with delaying and defeating the President?s order ? and Suskind?s dream ? to break up banks and bring down Wall Street. Geithner has denied he ever defied the President ? which sounds credible since Obama persuaded him to stay though he had wanted to leave after the debt-ceiling battle.
According to many commentators, what probably held Geithner?s hand ? and Summers?s ? was not any affiliation with Wall Street, but rather fear of its impact. Besides, at least $700 billion was required: who would pay for them? Would the government have been able to manage such a systemic change? The attack on Geithner then becomes personal: At least twice in the book, Suskind alleges Geithner has the ?shifty eyes of a shoplifter? and that his collar isn?t straight. How does it even matter whether the treasury secretary is cock-eyed or cleft-lipped if he does his job to the President’s satisfaction?
Towards the middle of the book, the allegations become rather wild. Suskind paints the picture of a White House which becomes a male chauvinist pig sty under Rahm Emanuel, ably supported by Summers. Emanuel, in Suskind?s words is a foul-mouthed politician with short-term goals and without the temperament to run the White House. Several profanities are attributed to Emanuel, who the author says created an anti-women atmosphere at the White House. Even President Obama, says Suskind, wasn?t accommodative enough of the brilliant women around him. The author quotes Christina Roemer as saying she ?felt like a piece of meat? after a showdown with Summers and Anita Dunn as saying the White House was ?a place hostile to women?. Summers is quoted as telling budget director Peter Orszag that ?there is no adult in the White House? and that ?we are home alone.? Not surprisingly, all these statements have been denied by the respective persons.
Confidence Men gloats in the departure of Obama?s ?B-Team? in 2010. Suskind credits Peter Rouse with writing routine secret memos and recommendations to the President which provided him a clear view of the back room operations. This, Suskind says, led to their exits. This theory sounds specious. Those who left Obama included not only members of the tar-painted ?B-Team? like Summers and Emanuel, but also Suskind?s ?A-Team? candidates like Volcker, Orszag, Roemer and Elizabeth Warren. Moreover, Obama?s trust in Summers and Geithner?Suskind?s objects of hatred?remains unshakeable.
Confidence Men reflects the frustration of someone whose hopes that Obama would sweep the scummy Wall Street off the face of the earth were dashed. The author writes in Acknowledgements: ?I have often said that non-fiction writing should dig beneath the alluring, often simplified narratives of heroes and villains, in search of a deeper and more resonant rendering of human complexity. If this book has in any way managed that, it is due to the hundreds of sources and their faith in being able to understand the times in which we live.? Confidence Men, sadly, ends up becoming precisely what the author condemns: A simplified, theatrical narrative of heroes and villains, without any deeper attempt to find the truth.