Chertoff, Geithner and Summers: Corrective actions

The Post, meanwhile, had a “Clarification,” since it had already reported the business relationship. It self-flaggelated for not pointing out the Chertoff Group had “previously disclosed” it.

Having trouble following all this? Don’t we all. The never-ending incestuous relationship between ex-regulators and regulatees is a blur. And there’s not much we can do to end it, or to answer doubters who worry that officeholders may tailor their policies to benefit prospective employers once the government gig is over.

There is probably no constitutional way to eliminate all the detours around any pitiful barriers erected in this outbound lane to private sector prosperity. HOWEVER: There is a way to shut down the parts of the two-way street that are incoming.

A president simply should not appoint his top economic people, for instance, from the ranks of those who enthusiastically helped create the disastrous mess they have now put in place to clean up. Why would they suddenly come up with regulations they successfully thwarted for their entire professional lives?

Let’s remember how Albert Einstein defined insanity: “Doing the same thing over and over again and expecting different results.” It doesn’t take an Einstein to surmise that as long-standing champions of free market anarchy, Tim Geithner and Lawrence Summers, the Obama administration’s main financial policy guys, aren’t suddenly the best ones to apply effective controls.

Unless one has seen too many TV shows where law enforcement agents hire a former no-goodnik because he or she knows all the tricks of the trade, he goes elsewhere for expertise. This is particularly true after evidence emerges, as it has, that these two continue to make sure that life is still easy for their former cohorts who got rich with everybody else’s money.

Let’s give Messrs. Geithner and Summers the benefit of the doubt, and assume that they mean well. They still don’t get it. They still have a mindset that was developed during their formative years, when they were walled off with their mega-rich mentors.

Why should we be surprised that after hundreds of billions spent on economic recovery, about the only ones who have “recovered” are the cronies of those in their government wing of the country club?

It needs to be shut down, and they need to be turned out. There are so many others from the real world who developed their tremendous qualifications without being impossibly tainted. We need them now to develop and benefit those they’re supposed to represent — the people. ALL the people, not just the prosperous few.

As for Geithner and Summers, don’t worry about them. As Mr. Chertoff and so many others from the loftiest levels of government have amply demonstrated, there are plenty of lucrative jobs for them in the corporate world. Unlike the millions of others who can’t find work, who haven’t been helped one iota by this administration.

Visit Mr. Franken’s website at www.bobfranken.tv.