A week or so back I made fun of the New Republic for running a slideshow on Obama Administration sleaze, when only one out of the nine sleazoids fingered, Peter Orszag, actually appeared to be exploiting his service in office for gross financial gain. Well, TNR may have overreacted, but at least they, you know, reacted. As James Fallows points out, here, nobody else seems to give a damn.*
Now that Fallows has made a bit of a stink, there has been some reaction, but mostly of an ass-covering sort, often pointing to Will Wilkinson’s ponderously oracular take in the Economist, to the effect that “the seeming inevitability of Orszag-like migrations points to a potentially fatal tension within the progressive strand of liberal thought.”
As opposed, presumably, to the “non-progressive strand of liberal thought.” Well, at least the “tension” here is only “potentially fatal.” For what it’s worth, here’s my take: Peter Orszag has turned himself into a walking signboard for Citibank, a signboard that reads as follows:
Who wants to be a billionaire?
Hey, government workers! You work hard for the common good, and we at Citibank want to recognize all the good, hard, noble work you do! Yes, we’re proud of you and we think you deserve some recognition! So after, say, two or three years of selfless labor for the American people, come to work for us, and you can have a million-dollar home! Yeah, a million-dollar home, for your servants! Yeah, that could definitely happen, government workers, if you do a “good job”—a good job Citibank style!
*Jim’s proof is that when he searched for “Orszag Citibank,” he got zero hits. Well, that might have been my fault, because I said Pete was going to “Citigroup,” which just goes to show how cunning those “Citi” dudes are. Citigroup, Citicorp, Citibank—it’s hard to hit a moving target.
