Maybe this is an exaggeration. The Week talks about Brian Deese and his role in re-architecting Detroit and American capitalism.
“Brian Deese isn’t picking out Chevy Malibu’s colors for next year.”
That’s what President Obama’s press secretary said to assure Americans that the administration has no interest in micromanaging the newly-nationalized General Motors. Anyhow, Deese, a junior member of the White House economic policy staff, has bigger things to worry about—like “dismantling General Motors and rewriting the rules of American capitalism,” as The New York Times put it. …
A fresh-faced 31-year-old, Deese dropped out of Yale Law School last year to work for Hillary Clinton’s presidential campaign. When Clinton sank, Deese skipped over to the winning ship, impressed everybody who counts, and landed a desk in the White House. The big guns like Larry Summers and Christina Romer are busy cooking up hilariously sunny budget projections while trying to look like they’re keeping the economy from collapsing. So Deese, armed with an undergrad degree in political science, finds the GM portfolio and the fate of millions in his hands.
It’s not Mr. Deese’s fault for being selected for the job, though it might be someone else’s fault for creating the job in the first place. However, that’s a different story. The Week calls Deese the “Dauphin of Detroit”, which is alliterative but slightly misleading. Historically Dauphins have been rulers in waiting for the French throne. Deese is unlikely to be in line for anybody’s throne; and should more probably be styled Le Hatchetman — sent to do a job — on the auto industry and American capitalism. Which leads you to wonder, does President Obama actually want Detroit to survive?
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