The Obama-Brooks Bromance

In the current New Republic, I have a piece on the Obama White House’s special relationship with New York Times columnist David Brooks. The piece explores  efforts by the Obama team to court Brooks, and why Brooks’ center-right views are so crucial to the White House’s selling of issues like healthcare and the economy. From the piece:

It’s easy to understand why the administration does this. Brooks’s sympathetic columns help to validate the key myth of this White House: that it is fundamentally post-partisan. Plus, Brooks appeals to a major Obama constituency: the latté-sipping Baby Boomers who were the subject of his 2000 best-seller Bobos in Paradise. These were among Obama’s strongest supporters in the last election, but their loyalty could be tested by spiraling deficits, botched health care reform, or a flagging economy. As much as any columnist, Brooks speaks to these left-of-center suburbanites.

After all, he is known for attracting liberal readers who normally can’t stand conservative pundits.

Read the full piece HERE

Ralph Cioffi, the Meltdown Fall Guy

The financial crisis has dragged on for two years already, and no senior Wall Street executive has been brought to trial. On October 12, Ralph Cioffi and Matt Tannin, two former Bear Stearns hedge fund managers, will be the first finance guys to go before a jury. The spring 2007 collapse of Cioffi’s $1.6 billion hedge funds was the first tremor that signaled the financial system was coming apart.

In this week’s New York Magazine, I preview the trial. What I find interesting is that Cioffi’s trial has become a proxy for the legions of Wall Street bankers and traders who gambled recklessly with leverage and exotic financial instruments, only to see the whole system go up in smoke. Prosecutors have compiled a bunch of embarrassing emails from Cioffi and his partner, Matt Tannin, that suggest they knew the market was tanking even as they tried to line up new investors. Sure, it looks bad. But the heads-I-win-tails-you-lose culture was rampent late in the bubble. Goldman’s prop trading desk famously shorted sub-prime real-estate even as they sold mortgage-backed securities to their other clients. It’s all too easy to dispose of a few foot soldiers like Cioffi and Tannin while ignoring the perverse culture of reckless investing and greed that incentivized this kind of behavior in the first place. The question remains open as to why, even now, no senior executive, from Dick Fuld to Joe Cassano to John Thain, has been charged with any wrongdoing even though the bubble happened on their watch, and was largely a result of their profit-at-any-cost management style.

It’s been a lonely time for Cioffi since prosecutors paraded him in front of reporters last June. No one from Bear’s senior ranks–Jimmy Cayne, Warren Spector, Ace Greenberg–has called since his indictment. Alan Schwartz, Cayne’s successor, called once. Meanwhile, Cioffi has liquidated his luxurious lifestyle. In July, he sold his Southampton home for way less than the $11 million asking price. He’s quit his country club memberships. His Tenafly, NJ home is in contract. And he’s sold two of his three Ferarris, while awaiting a buyer for the third. Any takers?

Read the full piece HERE

Wolffe at the Door

I have a new TNR piece out on former Newsweek writer Richard Wolffe’s book proposal to write an insider-account of the Obama White House. Wolffe, who now works at Dan Bartlett’s corporate lobbying firm Public Strategies, has been generating headlines in recent days for trying to occupy conflicting roles as both journalist and flack. On Friday, Wolffe guest-hosted “Countdown” on MSNBC, but this week the network said it should have divulged his PR affiliations. And now many are questioning the ethics of his trying to write a reported book about the Obama administration while also advising corporate clients that may benefit from policies passed by the White House.

Wolffe still desparately wants to be a writer. From the piece:

According to a person familiar with the book proposal, Wolffe’s project is titled “30 Days: A Portrait of the White House at Work.” In the proposal, Wolffe writes that he has personal relationships with Obama officials at “the highest level” who have already “expressed support informally” for the project. Wolffe envisions a fly-on-the-wall account of a month inside the White House, where he’ll be “capturing group dynamics and people in action.”
Read the full piece HERE: