The Woman Who Knew Too Much vs. The Beltway Boy's Club

by: Larkspur

Sun Oct 16, 2011 at 02:53:05 AM EDT

They booted her out of Washington D.C., but they may regret it if she pulls the upset over Scott Brown, who is currently fumbling over snide male chauvinist attacks and being caught plagiarizing another Republican senator's personal story.

The Woman Who Knew Too Much
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As she crisscrossed the country, spreading the word about the C.F.P.B., Warren became a familiar face to many, especially to those who had seen her on television-on CNBC, Real Time with Bill Maher, and The Daily Show with Jon Stewart. She had gained millions of supporters. With her passionate defense of America's beleaguered middle class, under assault today from seemingly every direction, she had become like a modern-day Mr. Smith, giving voice to regular citizens astonished at the failure of Washington to protect Main Street-and what increasingly appeared to be its abandonment of middle-class America. By July, the A.F.L.-C.I.O.-speaking for its 12 million members-had called on Obama to name Warren to head the agency. So had scores of consumer groups. Eighty-nine Democrats in the House of Representatives had signed a letter, publicly urging him to choose Warren. Newspapers around the country editorialized on her behalf, as did hundreds of bloggers. By July 18, when Obama announced that he was passing Warren over, he did so after receiving petitions signed by several hundred thousand people and organizations urging him to appoint Warren as the country's top consumer watchdog.

At the end of his remarks, Obama turned to Warren and kissed her on the cheek. She smiled gamely, though if there are kisses a woman can do without, this was one of them. A Judas kiss, some would say. But if so, the betrayal was not just of Elizabeth Warren. In his remarks, Obama would hint at what had happened to Warren, commenting that she had faced "very tough opposition" and had taken "a fair amount of heat." He also alluded to the powerful forces arrayed against her, and against the C.F.P.B.-"the army of lobbyists and lawyers right now working to water down the protections and reforms that we've passed," the corporations that pumped "tens of millions of dollars" into the fight, and "[their] allies in Congress." But he was mincing his words. The fight against Warren and the C.F.P.B. was one of the most brutal Washington battles this year, up there with the debt-ceiling showdown and now the looming battle over the jobs bill-but part of the same war. Arrayed against Warren, and today against the very existence of the C.F.P.B., was the full force of what many, most notably Simon Johnson, the M.I.T. professor and former International Monetary Fund chief economist, have called the American financial oligarchy: Wall Street firms and banks supported mainly by Republican members of Congress, but also politicians on the other side of the aisle, along with members of Obama's own inner circle.

At a time of record corporate profits, a time when 14 million Americans are out of work, when millions have lost their homes and, according to the Census Bureau, the ranks of those living in poverty has grown to one in six-that Elizabeth Warren could be publicly kneecapped and an agency devoted to protecting American consumers could come under such intense attack is, ultimately, the story about who holds power in America today.

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In May, Christopher Dodd, the former Democratic senator from Connecticut, who had chaired the powerful Senate Banking Committee, denied to Politico the rumors that he was trying to kill Warren's nomination. But his cryptic statement about people with "ego" problems standing in the way of the bureau was widely seen as a poison dart aimed at Warren. During the passage of Dodd-Frank, Dodd, who is now chairman of the Motion Picture Association of America, was seen as one of Warren's more influential opponents. Among Wall Street's staunchest allies-to the tune, in his last election, of almost $4 million in campaign donations for a race he did not even complete-he had sponsored the reform bill in the Senate but had several times appeared to yield to bank opposition, entertaining a number of proposals that would have either killed the C.F.P.B. outright or severely restricted its independence. Warren fought back, not only by calling in support from the White House, but also by speaking out in public. In March 2010 she lashed out in the Huffington Post: "My first choice is a strong consumer agency," she said. "My second choice is no agency at all and plenty of blood and teeth left on the floor."

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