Almost a year into his presidency, Barack Obama appears to suck. He hasn’t closed Guantanamo Bay, health care reform is a debacle, and worst of all, he’s “completely whiffed” on fixing Wall Street, “siding with the financial status quo, who happen to be the bad guys,” writes Matt Taibbi. Obama and the Democrats seem to prefer their generous corporate pals to their voters. Taibbi’s solution: Get Harvard's Elizabeth Warren—she runs the Congressional Oversight Panel, which oversees the TARP bailout—to run against Obama.
Warren has plenty of credibility and truly gets the financial stuff, but she’s a genuine crusader for the little guy, outraged over the bungled bailout. “I simply cannot see her suddenly flipping and holding $2000-a-plate fundraisers with Lloyd Blankfein and Jamie Dimon.” Running against Obama in 2012 might help Republicans, but we simply need to oust the corporate butt-kissers. Obama, a willfully iconic politician, now looks like a “symbol of anti-change.” (More Matt Taibbi stories.)