Elizabeth Warren (Who?) CFPB nomination on indefinite hiatus.

The Who? in the title reflects the fact that Elizabeth Warren is more or less unknown outside of Activist Left circles, where she is generally considered to be a secular saint*. Warren would also be the first head of the “Consumer Financial Protection Bureau” (CFPB) mandated by Dodd-Frank, except for the minor detail that the last thing we need right now is yet another regulatory agency seemingly designed to put the brakes on economic development.   Anyway, the short version of the current brouhaha: Senate Republicans won’t let Warren’s nomination come to a vote; House Republicans have no qualms whatsoever about denying the President the ability to make recess appointments for the rest of the 112th Congress; and Democrats, having conveniently forgotten that they did the exact same thing to President George Bush, are upset and wounded over the entire thing. And, oh yes, progressives are particularly upset and wounded that a Republican** called her a liar to her face when she tried to play I’m-too-important-for-this-hearing:

What makes this particularly entertaining is that the Left really, really wants this specific woman in this specific position, which suggests that the CFPB is going to be more or less a meaningless shell without her.  Those remembering the history of the FBI may want to contemplate the perils of giving an unelected bureaucrat too much power – oh, who am I kidding?  The Right doesn’t need me to tell them that and the Left is going to scratch their heads over the very question.  At any rate, expect this one-sided showdown to contribute to what promises to be a very long, slow burn this summer by Democrats as they increasingly wonder why things aren’t breaking their way…

Moe Lane (crosspost)

*I’m not exactly sure why she’s in such high regard – which doesn’t mean that it’s not real, for given values of ‘real.’  To the point where the Left was certain that she could have saved the Democratic majority in the House in 2010.  No, really.

**Rep. Patrick McHenry, NC-10 (until they finish fixing the CDs in North Carolina, at least).  Hey, why doesn’t the Online Left go and raise a lot of money for his opponent? – seeing as McHenry’s in a R+17 district, which makes him almost as vulnerable as Rep. Elijah Cummings (the other Congressman in that clip) is.  Which is to say… not.  We’re all still having a chuckle over here at the way that one simple “You lie!” removed $1.69 million Democratic dollars from the 2010 election as thoroughly as if the money had been taken out to a field and burned.  We’d love to see it happen again, and again, and again.

THE RETURN OF ELIZABETH WARREN!!!!!

Five exclamation points, so that you know that it’s important.

Yes, yes, I know: who?  I invite the reader to go back to an understated post of mine from September 2010 entitled “Elizabeth Warren will rise from the sea to destroy us all!“: essentially, it was being argued by the Left that appointing this woman to be the first head of the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau (CFPB) would save the House of Representatives for the Democratic party.  Apparently, putting her in charge of yet another new regulatory agency (this one mandated by Dodd-Frank) would be the killer app, the silver bullet, the Secret Sauce that would get progressives out of their seats and simply flood all those Blue-in-Red polling stations in a cerulean tide of majority-retention.  Really.  Elizabeth Warren would save the House.

And lo, the mocking stretched to the heavens.  Even in what was turning out to be an excellent campaign season for stupid political brainstorming by the Democrats, this one was pretty prime*. Continue reading THE RETURN OF ELIZABETH WARREN!!!!!

Elizabeth Warren will rise from the sea to destroy us all!

Who?

Last month I implied that one of the signs of DOOM in November would be an increased number of convoluted theories about how to ensure Democratic dominance. Ben Domenech over at The New Ledger has links to the latest one, which is apparently resting on the core assumption that two years of Democratic disillusionment with an administration that is excellent at betrayal, yet incompetent at actual policy- and agenda-setting can be instantly set aside by the appointment of Elizabeth Warren to the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau. Continue reading Elizabeth Warren will rise from the sea to destroy us all!