Anderson@Large

Race at the Top

This morning, President Barack Obama will give a major education reform speech at the National Urban League’s annual convention.

According to the White House media advisory, Obama will talk about his signature Race to the Top program:

The President’s speech will focus on the dramatic reforms that states, school districts, schools and teachers unions have undertaken over the past 18 months, including steps to improve teacher effectiveness and transform persistently low-performing schools.

During his recent appearance on NBC’s “Meet the Press,” Urban League President Marc Morial said they are “going to have a constructive discussion about race and education, race and jobs, race and health care.”

That’s nice, but a lot of folks want a constructive discussion about race and White House West Wing.

New York Times columnist Maureen Dowd dared to say what black folks are still reluctant to say in public:

The first black president should expand beyond his campaign security blanket, the smug cordon of overprotective white guys surrounding him — a long political tradition underscored by Geraldine Ferraro in 1984 when she complained about the “smart-ass white boys” from Walter Mondale’s campaign who tried to boss her around.

Otherwise, this administration will keep tripping over race rather than inspiring on race.

A correction: It was Andrew Young, not Geraldine Ferraro, who complained that Walter Mondale’s campaign was being run by “smart-ass white boys.”

My Trotter Group colleague, USA Today columnist DeWayne Wickham, writes Obama needs a Louis Martin to help him “navigate racially sensitive issues”:

It was Martin’s job to keep the presidents he served from stumbling into a race-baiting ambush like the one Andrew Breitbart sprung on the Obama administration and the NAACP. The right-wing blogger set off racial shockwaves when he released a 2-minute, 38-second video clip from a nearly hour-long speech that Shirley Sherrod, a regional USDA official, gave to a Georgia NAACP branch in March.

[…]

For years Martin helped Democratic presidents avoid such missteps. But in an administration that believes simply repeating that Obama “is not the president of black America” keeps him from hitting the racial tripwire, there is no one in the West Wing with Martin’s portfolio.

That’s too bad — and might be politically fatal. In the multifront war Obama’s political enemies are forcing this nation’s first black president to fight, he has left his most vulnerable flank lightly guarded. From the moment he emerged from the pack to become a viable candidate for his party’s presidential nomination, the race issue has been his Achilles’ heel.

And if Obama doesn’t get someone on his staff soon who knows how to protect it, it’ll be his undoing.

DeWayne is speaking truth to empower.

The Real Jobs Picture

There are educated fools. And then there’s Lawrence Summers, the director of the White House National Economic Council.

During an appearance on ABC’s “This Week with George Stephanopoulos,” Summers said “everybody agrees the recession is over.”

Sure, Summers is an, um, esteemed economist and former president of Harvard University, but the nation’s unemployed, including millions of black Americans strongly disagree.

The recession is over for Summers and “fat cat” banksters. But his White House colleague, Dr. Christina Romer, didn’t get the memo. Romer told NBC News’ David Gregory:

MR. GREGORY: So in your mind, this recession is not over.

DR. ROMER: Of course not. We have--you know, for, for the people on Main Street and throughout this country, they are still suffering. The unemployment rate is still 10 percent.

Memo to Dr. Summers: Get a clue. A jobless recovery means the recession is not over.

Tax Cheat Geithner May Get the Ax

Finally, some good news. Progressive Democrats are calling for Treasury Secretary Timothy Geithner to get to stepping.

The Hill reports:

A Congressional Progressive Caucus (CPC) member said there's “growing consensus” among liberals that Treasury Secretary Timothy Geithner should step down.

Rep. Peter DeFazio (D-Ore.) said Wednesday that he and other liberal House members are becoming increasingly tired of Obama administration economic policies that they say are too focused on maintaining the stability of Wall Street firms and largely ignore “Main Street.”

DeFazio told MSNBC’s Ed Schultz “we may have to sacrifice just two more jobs [Geithner’s and Larry Summers’] to get millions back for Americans.”

DeFazio’s sentiment was echoed by Republican Rep. Kevin Brady, who during a Joint Economic Committee hearing told Geithner:

Mr. Secretary, the public has lost all confidence in your ability to do the job. Conservatives agree, Democrats agree that it really is time for a fresh start, and I would urge you to consider it.

Geithner, get ready. The bus may be coming.

Obama and Diversity

The past month has been full of distractions – racial, not really post-racial and personal.

So, I missed the release of the National Journal’s study on diversity in the Obama administration, which found that fewer than half of Cabinet-rank officials are white men.

While they represent less than half of senior aides, “the most powerful West Wing aides are still mostly white men.”

Eleven percent of President Obama’s top officials are African American. That’s not much of a change from George W. Bush, whose White House staff was 10 percent black. Yeah, who knew?

Interestingly, the survey found that the Obama administration is, ahem, “heavier on Harvard degrees” than the Bush administration.

While the Obama administration is heavy with policy wonks and academic, “few of his key people can point to significant business experience.” The National Journal reports:

Overall, only 28 percent of Obama’s top officials were business executives at some point in their careers, compared with 38 percent of Bush’s top officials at the start of his first term.

For more info, check out “Obama’s Team: The Face of Diversity.”

Summers Asleep at the Wheel

They say a picture is worth a thousand words.

Larry Summers, director of the White House National Economic Council, stayed awake when he was raking in the dough from hedge funds and Wall Street banksters and defending bonuses for bailout bunglers.

But during President Barack Obama’s meeting “to discuss the impact of the current crisis on consumers,” he can’t be bothered.

Feeling Down in New York City

I am among the 31 percent of Americans who have not filed their tax returns. Like Treasury Secretary Tim Geithner, U.S. Trade Rep Ron Kirk, Health and Human Services Secretary-designate Kathleen Sebelius and Tom Daschle, I am in no hurry to pay up.

But unlike with Geithner, et al., the IRS won’t be so forgiven if I make an "innocent mistake" and fail to pay my taxes.

So, with Tax Day looming, I won’t be “living for the weekend.” Instead, I have to hunker down and prepare my return.

Troubling Disclosures

On Friday, the White House released senior staff members’ personal financial disclosure reports.

A review of Larry Summers’ form reveals that Wall Street barons paid him a king’s ransom. The New York Times reports:

Mr. Summers, the former Treasury secretary and Harvard president who is now the chief economic adviser to President Obama, earned nearly $5.2 million in just the last of his two years at one of the world’s largest funds, according to financial records released Friday by the White House.

Impressive as that might sound, it is all the more considering that Mr. Summers worked there just one day a week.

Summers also received more than $2.7 million in speaking fees from recipients of Troubled Asset Relief Program (TARP) funds, including Citigroup, JPMorgan Chase and Goldman Sachs.

While Summers protects Wall Street insiders, women like Rep. Maxine Waters, FDIC Chairman Sheila Bair and Stanford alumna, Brooksley Born, have pushed for greater regulation and oversight.

Congress’ TARP watchdog, Elizabeth Warren, is the latest woman to blow the whistle on the “banksters.” Warren told the New York Post:

The management of the institutions receiving subsidies from the government must be replaced.

It is crucial for these things to happen.

Japan tried to avoid them and just offered subsidy with little or no consequences for management or equity investors, and this is why Japan suffered a lost decade

Warren added:

We want to ensure that the Treasury gives the public an alternative approach to what is happening today, an approach with which we have deep concerns.

Indeed, something has to give. Poll after poll shows Americans do not want the federal government to keep bailing out these banksters.

William Black, a regulator during the Savings & Loan scandal and author of "The Best Way to Rob a Bank Is to Own One: How Corporate Executives and Politicians Looted the S&L Industry," shares Warren’s outrage. He says the financial meltdown was driven by "fraud by top elites."

During an appearance on PBS’ Bill Moyers Journal, Black said:

But if you leave the failed CEOs in place, it isn't just that they're terrible business people, though they are. It isn't just that they lack integrity, though they do. Because they were engaged in these frauds. But they're not going to disclose the truth about the assets….

To know who committed the frauds. Whose bonuses we should recover. How much the assets are worth. How much they should be sold for. Is the bank insolvent, such that we should resolve it in this way? It's the predicate, right? You need to know the facts to make intelligent decisions. And they're deliberately leaving in place the people that caused the problem, because they don't want the facts.

Treasury Secretary Tim Geithner must do more than talk tough. He needs to apply his “single standard” to failed bank executives.

Geithner should start by firing Bank of America CEO Ken Lewis. BoA is no longer headquartered in San Francisco, but it still has a banker’s heart and a bankster’s worldview.