There is no such creature as an indispensable bureaucrat in Washington. Elizabeth Warren comes close. Yeah, we heard that before with the nomination of Tim Geithner as Treasury Secretary.
Warren is different. She’s on the short list to run the new consumer financial protection agency. Warren designed the damned thing. That’s what.
To question her credentials is like asking Tony Gwynn and Ted Williams can they hit.
Warren, a law professor at Harvard, proposed such an agency in 2007: “A new regulatory body to protect consumers who use credit cards, home mortgages, car loans and a host of other products.”
The blunt-speaking lady from Oklahoma has close ties with Obama as candidate and now serves as chairperson of the Congressional oversight panel on the banking bailout.
Demonstrating a total disregard for internal Washington politics, Warren has been an outspoken critic of Geithner, who, coincidentally, would recommend her to the president to head the new consumer agency.
On Wednesday, Warren testified before a Senate panel telling lawmakers Geithner’s $75 billion homeowner mortgage foreclosure assistance program was a failure. It was “behind the curve” and, “We need a program with far more urgency and some real teeth in it.”
As head of the consumer protection agency, Warren would oversee the writing and enforcement of rules that now sends shock waves through the financial institutions.
In fairness, Warren would be the strongest consumer advocate this nation has ever seen as long as her zeal does not cripple the industry in her role as sheriff.
Geithner has let it be known Warren “is one of the 
most effective advocates of reform in the country.” But he refuses to endorse her for the new job.
ABC News reported Geithner was upset that Warren criticized the handling of the administration’s TARP program which bailed out financial institutions.
The White House has leaked two names on Obama’s short list: Treasury official Michael Barr and Eugene Kimmelman at the Justice Department. Both are considered “team” players.
Senate Banking Chairman Chris Dodd, D-Conn., has indicated Warren may not have the votes to override a filibuster if nominated.
“The closer you are to the for-profit institutions that brought our economy to the brink, the easier it is for you to get a job in Washington. The more independent you are from those institutions, the more controversial a figure you are,” syndicated progressive newspaper columnist David Sirota told ABC News.
How dumb of me to think putting the best possible person in a job is political suicide. There is nothing in Warren’s portfolio that suggests she is a Ralph Nader other than refusing to be intimated by Big Money.
I don’t envision Warren as a political pawn nor the job as a political hatchet. I would hope Obama would step up and relish a fight to clear her nomination through the Senate.
Silly me, we have a chance to have someone in Washington to stand up for me and you.
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EPILOGUE
Before I wrote this column, I was thinking of the most “indispensable” bureaucrats in our nation’s history. One was Robert Moses, an urban planner who bullied his way for the development of Long Island and New York City. The other was J. Edgar Hoover, whose invincibility was a figment of his own imagination with the help of secret dirt dug up on key politicians and presidents.
Cross posted on The Remmers Report
Comments are welcome. Link to my blogsite or go to my email address at [email protected] . Remmers’ varied career spans 26 years in the newspaper business. Read a more thorough resume on The Remmers Report.
Jerry Remmers worked 26 years in the newspaper business. His last 23 years was with the Evening Tribune in San Diego where assignments included reporter, assistant city editor, county and politics editor.