Now we know why President Obama sought to avoid a messy confirmation hearing for Elizabeth Warren to head the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau. She might have had to respond to reports that she’s a money-grubbing tool of trial lawyers. According to Bloomberg News, even as she was serving as head of the congressional panel overseeing the $700 billion bank bailout this year, Warren took $90,000 to testify in a class-action lawsuit by retailers against several of the major banks whose bailout she was overseeing. She told Bloomberg that she saw no conflict of interest, which speaks volumes about her judgment.
Don’t tell that to the Left, though. Liberal columnist Brent Budowsky wrote weeks ago in the Hill that if Obama appointed her as head of the commission, “the Democratic base will erupt and turn out to vote in far greater numbers than any current poll suggests.” In the newly released book “Permanently Blue,” author Dylan Loewe went so far as to suggest Warren could succeed Obama in 2016 and lead a permanent Democratic majority : “Politically,” he wrote, “she’s almost perfect.”
MoveOn.org recently distributed a rap video about the importance of appointing her — and not anyone else — to head the little-known agency. The group’s accompanying message: “If they appoint anyone other than Elizabeth Warren to lead the new Consumer Financial Protection Bureau, they will be letting down the millions of Americans who joined them in fighting for real Wall Street reform.” Huh? As for the song, its refrain goes, “Got, got, got a new sheriff — Elizabeth!” and also notes, “She’s not about the money and the green-o!”
Or maybe she is about the green-o after all. The fawning Left must be disappointed to hear about Warren’s blind eye to her own conflicts of interest. Had Obama appointed her to a position that requires Senate confirmation, she would have had to answer for this. But he chose instead to exploit a loophole by appointing her as an “assistant” to Treasury Secretary Tim Geithner instead of “director” of the agency she now heads. So we get one more unvetted Obama official to follow in the trail of tax cheats, shady government contractors and 9/11 truthers whom Obama has pushed into positions of public trust. This may be part of the reason that even Elizabeth Warren’s appointment will not be enough to save the Obama administration from voters’ punishment on Nov. 2.
