Sunday, September 18, 2011

hOme alOne

Ed Driscoll » The Wonk Who Wasn’t There: "“Summers walked in, slightly late, but not impolitely so, and met Orszag at the table. And then it was the two of them. Orszag hoped that this time the White House would be less fraught with strife than the last go-round during the 1990s. Summers said it kind of came with the territory. This talk of their shared history seemed to thaw things out. They both grabbed for the plate of flatbreads … and tore corners at the discus-sized breads. ‘You know, Peter, we’re really home alone.’ Over the past few months, Summers had said this, in a stage whisper, to Orszag and others as they left the morning economic briefings in the Oval Office. … ‘I mean it,’ Summers stressed. ‘We’re home alone. There’s no adult in charge. Clinton would never have made these mistakes.’”
As one of the commenters at the Brothers Judd blog notes, the Home Alone analogy cuts both ways — Summers is admitting that there are no grown-ups in the Obadministration, and inadvertently including himself amongst the small-fry."
Perfect. Makes one all warm and fuzzy inside, doesn't it?

UPDATE: "WHY THE SUSKIND BOOK IS DAMAGING, even though it doesn’t contain big factual revelations or real shockers – A Playbooker emails: “[T]his sounds like the wacky misadventures of a 50-year-old man who just got his first real job.”" [Bingo. -ed]