Why a Confirmation Fight Would Have Been Good for Warren, Obama and the U.S.

Fearing a tough confirmation fight, the president declined to nominate Elizabeth Warren to head the consumer protection agency she invented. That’s a shame, writes The Boston Globe’s Steven Syre, who argues that the next choice won’t get confirmed either, and at least a nominated Warren “could have done more than anyone to help defend the agency from persistent attacks on its authority and funding.”

Steven Syre in the Boston Globe:

As the nominee, Warren would have been in a position to continue to defend the agency she invented in the earliest months of its existence. She could speak to consumer issues and people would listen. How many people will pay attention when she is writing and speaking from Cambridge at the start of the fall semester?

[…] Remaining in the Washington spotlight, Warren could have done more than anyone to help defend the agency from persistent attacks on its authority and funding. Critics would still like to eliminate the director’s job entirely, handing bureau authority instead to a commission that would presumably do much less, if anything.

The president would have helped himself by nominating Warren, too. Standing up for consumers by nominating an able watchdog chief opposed by a wall of bankers is a good political alternative to what the president actually did – choosing someone else in an apparent concession.

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