Young Man Blues

The New York Times reviews Brian Deese’s resumé and writes, “It is not every 31-year-old who, in a first government job, finds himself dismantling General Motors and rewriting the rules of American capitalism”. Of course, it’s not every 47-year-old who hasn’t even completed his first term as Senator who finds himself being endorsed by the New York Times and actually becoming president (and rewriting the rules of capitalism and seemingly dismantling America).

In April of 2001, Time magazine had the chutzpah to dub then newly-elected President Bush “the least experienced presidential nominee of modern times”, despite being elected to two terms as governor of one of America’s largest states, whose father had spent 12 years in the White House as veep and then president.

Of course, experience is remarkably fungible commodity amongst the left; Time magazine’s 2001 attack on the nascent Bush presidency is even more applicable to President Obama, though no one on the left complained during his campaign or afterward. (For comparison sake, Dan Quayle had spent more time serving in DC before being nominated in 1988 to be vice president; Sarah Palin has actual executive experience governing a state). So while the youth and inexperience of one of President Obama’s appointees is a surprising admission coming from the sclerotic Gray Lady, the actual details aren’t all that startling, given the man who’s currently “running” the country:

“It is not every 31-year-old who, in a first government job, finds himself dismantling General Motors and rewriting the rules of American capitalism.”

But that, in short, is the job description for Brian Deese, a not-quite graduate of Yale Law School who had never set foot in an automotive assembly plant until he took on his nearly unseen role in remaking the American automotive industry.

Nor, for that matter, had he given much thought to what ailed an industry that had been in decline ever since he was born. A bit laconic and looking every bit the just-out-of-graduate-school student adjusting to life in the West Wing — “he’s got this beard that appears and disappears,” says Steven Rattner, one of the leaders of President Obama’s automotive task force — Mr. Deese was thrown into the auto industry’s maelstrom as soon the election-night parties ended.