Put simply, Obama defends his friends. Ideas are utterly beside the point. If his friends have ideas that are abhorrent, or deeply injurious to his political supporters, or the American people at large, then tough toenails for his supporters and for the American people. ~Paul Rosenberg

As strange as it may sound coming from me, I think this is quite unfair to Obama. It is certainly not true, and it misreads why he is hanging on to Geithner. (By the way, the preoccupation some people on the left have with Obama’s friendship with Rick Warren is almost as bizarre and obsessive as complaints about Obama’s friendship with Rashid Khalidi.) It was typical of Bush to retain his friends and loyalists regardless of the political cost, and this was a habit that was undoubtedly reinforced by the man’s impressive obliviousness to the real world outside his bubble, but this has been the least of Obama’s problems. While it may not be any more flattering than Rosenberg’s assessment, the truth is very different.

Ideas are not beside the point for Obama, but ideas are principally a means to another end, which is Obama’s advancement, so he will use whichever ideas seem to serve that end. This is what his admirers refer to as pragmatism, and which I tend not to find very edifying, but it is how he has been able to rise so quickly. Very plainly, Obama does not protect his friends, but he will promote and defend those whom the establishment embraces and approves. On the contrary, it is his friends, mentors and close associates who seem to be among the most expendable, and they are the ones he tends to drop when they become liabilities. Allies and supporters who continue to be useful are retained. Warren has been useful to Obama because he conveys an impression of moderation and their relationship is supposed to convey Obama’s willingness to engage and understand evangelical Christians. The latter is not real, which is why the connection with Warren is so useful. As I said two and a half years ago:

All of this is supposed to show us that Obama is thoughtful, rather than callous, profound rather than predictable, but it does not. It is the tactic of the man who says, “I appreciate your point of view,” when in fact he does not appreciate it and wants to neutralise your criticism by deflecting the question in an entirely different direction.

Geithner’s presence in the administration represents its acceptance of “centrism” in economics and it is supposed to defend against the charge that the administration is embracing some sort of radical agenda. Above all, Obama keeps Geithner in place because he accepts continuing the collusion between government and the financial sector that Geithner and the decisions he made support. As I wrote in the February issue of Chronicles:

From what we can gather so far, Obama’s Treasury Department is likely to be even more active in intervening in the financial sector. As head of the New York Federal Reserve, Obama’s nominee for treasury secretary, Tim Geithner, endorsed each of Secretary Henry Paulson’s and Chairman Ben Bernanke’s bailout decisions, and Obama himself supported the bailout legislation in the early fall. One of the consequences of the bailout debate in the months since the financial crisis became particularly acute has been that the Democratic Party, already reconciled to financial interests during the Clinton years, has become even more closely allied to Wall Street.

For all of the newfound loathing for Geithner in the country*, he is simply the face of the very same bankrupt establishment, “centrist” forces who oversaw the unfolding of the crisis and crafted the ill-advised, ruinous TARP, which so many people continue to find just as wanting today as we did six months ago. Obama stands by Geithner for two very easily understood reasons: Geithner remains one of the main public faces of the failed establishment that Obama has spent his national career accommodating, and to do anything other than stand by one of his senior Cabinet members this early in his administration would mean political disaster for him. Obama has become trapped by his own accommodationist instincts, as the policies and personnel that the establishment embraces prove to be deeply flawed. Obama does not tend to break with establishment conventions, which significantly limits his ability to break with figures such as Geithner after they have already received the establishment seal of approval.

* It is worth remembering that when Geithner’s name was leaked as the nominee for Treasury, the market rallied amid strangely high hopes that he, the protege of Summers, was Wall Street’s sort of Treasury Secretary. That assessment might very well be right in a narrow sense, but that never meant that he was going to be a good Treasury Secretary. In the last few months, as he has replayed Paulson’s Greatest Hits, not even the markets have much confidence in him. In fairness to Geithner, he still has no confirmed deputies to help him, and many of the deputy posts still lack nominees. The already-labyrinthine vetting process, which has undoubtedly become even more excruciating for the vetted after the embarrassments in January, continues to hold up these basic appointments.