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More Credit Deserved
Richard Drew / AP Photo
Obama hasn’t put an end to the partisan vitriol, but he should get more recognition for preventing our financial system from going off a cliff.
A year ago, after the collapse of Lehman Brothers and AIG, my wife took some money out of our bank account and went around town buying CDs at a variety of other banks. Even very calm and sensible people (she was a corporate lawyer) thought that our whole financial system might be headed off a cliff.
Obama has also gotten health-care reform, one of our most important national needs, past the 50-yard line. That’s huge.
President Obama’s biggest achievement is that he and Tim Geithner and Larry Summers and Ben Bernanke helped prevent that. They deserve more credit. Obama has also gotten health-care reform, one of our most important national needs, past the 50-yard line. That’s huge.
• More Daily Beast contributors on Obama’s election anniversaryWhat he has not been able to do is leach the partisan poison from our political discourse. That’s not, I believe, due to his policies but to problems he’s having getting his message out over the amplified cacophony on the political fringes.
Walter Isaacson is president and CEO of the Aspen Institute, a nonpartisan educational and policy studies institute based in Washington, D.C., and was previously chairman and CEO of CNN and editor of Time magazine. He is the author of Einstein: His Life and Universe (April 2007), Benjamin Franklin: An American Life (2003), and Kissinger: A Biography (1992), and co-author of The Wise Men: Six Friends and the World They Made (1986).
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John Talks Joe
Lloyd Grove is editor at large for The Daily Beast. He is also a frequent contributor to New York magazine and was a contributing editor for Condé Nast Portfolio. He wrote a gossip column for the New York Daily News from 2003 to 2006. Prior to that, he wrote the Reliable Source column for the Washington Post, where he spent 23 years covering politics, the media, and other subjects.
The Right Dumps Carrie
Jacob Bernstein is a senior reporter at The Daily Beast. Previously, he was a features writer at WWD and W Magazine. He has also written for New York magazine, Paper, and The Huffington Post.
Geithner's Stock Plummeting
Jeff Madrick is a contributor to the New York Review of Books and a former economics columnist for the New York Times. He is editor of Challenge Magazine, visiting professor of humanities at Cooper Union, and senior fellow at the New School's Schwartz Center for Economic Policy Analysis. He is the author of Taking America, The End of Affluence (Random House) and The Case for Big Government.
A Justice Reflects
Walter Isaacson is president and CEO of the Aspen Institute, a nonpartisan educational and policy studies institute based in Washington, D.C., and was previously chairman and CEO of CNN and editor of Time magazine. He is the author of Einstein: His Life and Universe (April 2007), Benjamin Franklin: An American Life (2003), and Kissinger: A Biography (1992), and co-author of The Wise Men: Six Friends and the World They Made (1986).
"President Obama's biggest achievement is that he and Tim Geithner and Larry Summers and Ben Bernanke helped prevent that."
In a word...Bullshit. Sure, they saved the "big banks", but by doing so, they tied up the entire credit market. Yeah, they saved us all from doom and gloom, but they did it in the worst possible way. I still say, split up the behemoths, and auction off their assets to the 8,000 or so banks in this country that didn't take all of the big risks. The shareholders, and bondholders have already been screwed. Just pull the plug already, and get it over with.
Smoke more crack or down some aricept,youre ate up,freak
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