Two weeks ago, Thomas Friedman wrote: "What would impress me from Obama? How about this: ' ... I’m going to keep Treasury Secretary Hank Paulson on the job for a while. I am impressed with his handling of this crisis.'”
This was a classic bit of MSM false equivalence: Friedman had just urged John McCain to take certain un-Republican positions, so he's contractually obligated to ask for some equivalent un-Democratic statement from Obama. But imagine if Obama had taken Friedman's advice and tied himself to Paulson, who in mid-September was largely untested. From today's NYT:
The Treasury Department’s surprising turnaround on the issue of buying stock in banks, which has now become its primary focus, has raised questions about whether the administration squandered valuable time in trying to sell Congress on a plan that officials had failed to think through in advance.
It has also raised questions about whether the administration’s deep philosophical aversion to government ownership in private companies hindered its ability to look at all options for stabilizing the markets.
Some experts also contend that Treasury’s decision last month to not use taxpayer money to save Lehman Brothers worsened the panic that quickly metastasized into an international crisis.
