Times' Liberals Turn Against Obama
Politico's Jonathan Martin noticed that the liberals who dominate the Times' opinion pages turned en masse on their former favorite Barack Obama over the weekend, even the president's biggest fan, respected economist-turned-left-wing-anti-GOP-fulminator Paul Krugman. (Times Watch covered Maureen Dowd's reversal earlier this month.)
Perhaps the most notable reversal was that of liberal columnist, and former drama critic, Frank Rich, whose typically overdramatic Sunday warning to Obama, "Has a 'Katrina Moment' Arrived?," is drawing lots of readers. 
A charming visit with Jay Leno won't fix it. A 90 percent tax on bankers' bonuses won't fix it. Firing Timothy Geithner won't fix it. Unless and until Barack Obama addresses the full depth of Americans' anger with his full arsenal of policy smarts and political gifts, his presidency and, worse, our economy will be paralyzed. It would be foolish to dismiss as hyperbole the stark warning delivered by Paulette Altmaier of Cupertino, Calif., in a letter to the editor published by The Times last week: "President Obama may not realize it yet, but his Katrina moment has arrived."
Six weeks ago I wrote in this space that the country's surge of populist rage could devour the president's best-laid plans, including the essential Act II of the bank rescue, if he didn't get in front of it. The occasion then was the Tom Daschle firestorm. The White House seemed utterly blindsided by the public's revulsion at the moneyed insiders' culture illuminated by Daschle's post-Senate career. Yet last week's events suggest that the administration learned nothing from that brush with disaster.
Otherwise it never would have used Lawrence Summers, the chief economic adviser, as a messenger just as the A.I.G. rage was reaching a full boil last weekend. Summers is so tone-deaf that he makes Geithner seem like Bobby Kennedy.
While pulling his punches when it came to attacking Obama himself, Rich clearly faultedhis administration's wavering tactics:
In general, it's hard to imagine taxpayers shelling out billions for a second bank bailout unless there's a full accounting of every dime of the first, and true transparency for the new plan whose rollout is becoming the most attenuated striptease since the heyday of Gypsy Rose Lee.
Another compelling question connects all of the above: why has there been so little transparency and so much evasiveness so far? The answer, I fear, is that too many of the administration's officials are too marinated in the insiders' culture to police it, reform it or own up to their own past complicity with it.
