So the President’s chief economic advisor, Austan Goolsbee, is going back to Chicago. In a just world, he’d be going home with his tail tucked between his legs. Instead, he’s going back to teach — so young minds will understand just how jolly great the recovery has been.
I can’t say that I blame him for leaving. The recovery started weak and has is now stumbling, despite all the stimulus spending and string-pushing Goolsbee recommended. On his most recent Sunday morning appearance, This Week‘s Christiane Amanpour grilled him about the recent jobs report, leaving him with nothing to do but stammer that “‘Jobless recovery’ is an incorrect phrase.”
Really, Austan? Really?
But I will miss him, believe it or not. Goolsbee could effortlessly brighten any news program he appeared on. When confronted with a tough question, he would clench his jaw and jerk his head up and down several notches, as though trying to swallow whole a live field mouse, slathered in chunky peanut butter. He was a sight to behold. A gruesome sight, but a sight nonetheless.
Megan McCardle says that the White House is losing a “valuable asset.” And, well, I suppose there is some value to a boat anchor, even in a sunken boat carrying a cargo of boat anchors.
Still, any real change is going to have to wait until January 20, 2013 — at the very soonest. These credentialed fools can come and go more quickly or more slowly, but until Washington is shrunk back down to size, it’s still just one big dumb anchor after another.
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