Obama's new Czarina? Another empty suit, say detractors

by: jim kouri | published: 09 18, 2010

This afternoon, President Barack Obama announced that Harvard law professor Elizabeth Warren has been appointed Assistant to the President and Special Advisor to Treasury Secretary Timothy Geithner.

In this role, she will build the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau [CFPB], the centerpiece of the new Dodd-Frank financial regulatory overhaul law. Ms. Warren was the first to call for the creation of such an agency in 2007. The CFPB budget could be as large as $500 million. Warren’s role as senior advisor is currently loosely defined, allowing President Obama’s appointment to avoid confirmation by the Senate.

“If a Democratic President can’t even attempt confirmation with a 59 seat Democratic majority in the Senate, Ms. Warren is clearly not only unpalatable to conservatives, but to a large number of liberals as well. How convenient that the President’s announcement comes on a Friday afternoon, as soon as the Senate, who is supposed to ‘advise and consent,’ has left town,” said Congressman McHenry (R-NC).

“Ms. Warren just adds to the list of this White House’s unchecked fleet of czars. Her increased proximity to this President and loosely defined role will only make the creation of this new bureaucracy harder to track and further shielded from proper Congressional oversight. This is a continuation of a troubling pattern of avoiding disclosure and Senate confirmation.”

On April 12, 2010, CNN reported that Warren's was among additional names being considered as Supreme Court nominees to replace retiring Justice John Paul Stevens. Some believe that because she wasn't chosen for the nation's highest court, Obama is now offering her a powerful position without the sometimes tough confirmation process.

Critics are not as impressed with Warren's academic background, pointing out that she possesses no "real world" experience.

"Here's a woman who's lived in an ivory tower all her life but never had to meet a payroll or run a business or even worked for a profit-making organization. She's a left-wing ideologue who'll fit right in with Obama's regime of left-wingers," said political strategist Mike Baker.

Warren went to Harvard Law School in 1992 as the Robert Braucher Visiting Professor of Commercial Law. Prior to Harvard, she was the William A. Schnader Professor of Commercial Law at University of Pennsylvania School of Law and also taught at the University of Texas School of Law, University of Houston Law Center, University of Michigan and Rutgers Law School.

"Most conservatives that I've talked to believe she's just another empty-suit for Obama to add to his other empty suits in his administration," said Baker.

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