Elizabeth Warren Will Head Consumer Bureau

Liberals have something to celebrate: President Obama has appointed Harvard Professor Elizabeth Warren to oversee the creation of a new consumer-protection agency within the Treasury. Warren’s the natural choice for the job, since the agency was her idea in the first place; but she was likely to face a tough confirmation battle in the Senate due to her harsh critiques of Wall Street, so Obama appointed her to “oversee all aspects of that bureau’s creation” rather than appointing her to be its director (a task in which Obama says she’ll play a “pivotal role”). The new agency will seek to protect consumers from predatory financial products, like bad mortgages and credit cards.