These are hopeful days. The four horsemen of the establishment look like they are leaving the White House. Peter Orszag, who apparently was the most conservative of them all (and who just lobbied for more tax cuts for the rich), has left his position as head of the Office of Management and Budget. Larry Summers is leaving his position as director of National Economic Council. Rahm Emanuel might be out by October. And Tim Geithner is also rumored to be leaving after the election.

There are hardly four Democrats in the whole country who were more pro-establishment, anti-change, pro-corporate power, pro-Wall Street than those four. I'm being literal. Bob Rubin might break into the top four, maybe Evan Bayh, maybe Harold Ford, Jr. But the four that are leaving the White House are undoubtedly in the top ten most corporate friendly Democrats in the country.

So, that leads to the question of why did Obama pick them in the first place? Why did the guy who promised to change the whole system bring in the guys who are most wedded to the system? Why does Barack Obama love the establishment so much?

This is no longer an academic question. In the words of President Obama, I don't want to look backward, I want to look forward. This is the time for hope. So, all of these guys are leaving and I am perfectly happy to let bygones be bygones. The real question is -- who is going to replace them?

Unfortunately, so far the answers aren't good. Jacob Lew has been nominated to be the head of the OMB. During his Senate hearings he said this about deregulation:

"[T]he problems in the financial industry preceded deregulation ... [I] personally [don't] know the extent to which deregulation drove it, but I don't believe that deregulation was the proximate cause."

That's crazy. Saying deregulation was not the proximate cause of the economic crash is like saying if you jump out of a building gravity will not be the proximate cause of your death. I've had many Republicans on our show that have admitted deregulating the banks so they could take enormous risk was not a good idea. Lew's position is beyond Republican.

Some might think that Lew is motivated to take that position by his former (and possible future) employer, Citigroup. They paid him millions of dollars when he was an executive there, including a $950,000 bonus after Citigroup got bailed out by taxpayer money. But I don't think Lew is driven by personal greed (though I don't know the man, I'm just giving him the benefit of the doubt). I think he is the product of his context. He lives in the Washington/Wall Street bubble. And inside that bubble, everybody gets rich off of deregulation and it makes perfect sense to them.

So, why does Obama keep insisting on hiring within that bubble? Now, we hear that Summers replacement is likely to be a corporate executive because Obama feels he has been criticized for being anti-business. That is unreal. How easy is this guy to manipulate? Or does he want to be manipulated in that direction?

Who is calling Obama anti-business? The same Wall Street guys who robbed us of billions (some would argue trillions) and want to do it again. Why on God's green earth would you continue to listen to those guys?

Yes, they have some lackeys in the establishment press, too. I'm sure Mark Halperin would write a blistering article if Obama dared to pick an actual progressive to fill any of these positions. But my God man, why in the world would you give a damn what Mark Halperin and his DC buddies think?

You're losing the whole American population while trying to cater to these clowns. Get your head out of ... the DC/NY bubble. The rest of the country doesn't think you're too tough on business; they think you haven't done enough to help them -- the middle class.

So, I ask this as an earnest question -- why is Barack Obama obsessed with appeasing the establishment? Was he being completely disingenuous when he ran on change? How could he possibly have thought that Larry Summers or the corporate executive who might replace him would bring us real change?

Look, I ask all of this not to complain or because I am part of the so-called "professional left" but because it matters to the very important decisions he is about to make.

For example, if he picked Howard Dean to replace Rahm Emanuel as his chief of staff, we would all know we were going in the right direction. Not because Dean is a panacea, but because it would mean that Obama is getting serious about change and taking on the power establishment.

You know Dean would stand up for the middle class. You know all of the political pundits in DC would hate him. Now, does anyone think Obama has the courage to defy Washington conventional wisdom and appoint Dean? That's what I thought. Even if you love Obama with all of your heart, you know he'd never have the guts to pick Dean. That would make Washington and New York very angry with him. And he hates that. He has to be loved by those guys. They're the ones in his bubble.

I ask all of these questions because I am desperate to figure out how we can get President Obama to deliver on the change he promised so we can finally deliver for the middle class in this country instead of the wealthy and powerful that surround the president in Washington. What makes him tick? How can we get him to fall out of love with the establishment? How can we get him to have the courage to govern like he ran for office -- with passion and conviction to help all of us instead of the Washington power elite?

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This seems a lot like concern-trolling from Sirota:

OK, look - if we can all acknowledge that images and appearances are pretty important in politics, then I genuinely don't understand this:

   As he heads to his job as White House budget director, [Peter Orszag] already seems to pulse with energy, but he asks his driver to stop at Starbucks for enormous doses of iced and hot tea.

That's one of two references to Orszag's driver, and I'm pretty sure it's not his own driver, but a federal government driver (and car) - and that's what I genuinely don't understand.* How does a budget director who claims to be a deficit hawk in an administration that insists it wants to get rid of government waste nonetheless get driven around in a government car with a taxpayer-paid driver?

Look, Orszag is a cabinet-level guy. There may be security concerns.

But even if there aren't (and I have no idea), I'm willing to foot the bill for a driver so our OMB director can, you know, read and talk on the phone while he travels to and from work.

There's more...

This post is about the many ways in which Wall Street is about to do what they've always done to us: game the system for their own advantage.

It's what they do. As the old question goes: "Why do you think they get the big bucks?"

But, first, a little background...

There are a ton of extremely valid reasons why our government is engaging in the biggest giveaway of all time to the status quo (a/k/a Wall Street).

There's more...

There are three interesting stories--all interrelated and all concerning the administration's avoidance of people or news--simultaneously circulating around the MSM this evening. Taken together, they paint a picture of our nation's leadership engaged in the implementation of misdirected economic policies that may be summed as: a strategy that, lately, appears to go out of its way to obfuscate reality and simultaneously give short shrift to, arguably, the two greatest economic policy thinkers of our time, Nobel laureate economist Joseph Stiglitz and former Federal Reserve Board Chair Paul Volcker.

So, is ignoring Stiglitz,Volcker, and reality a viable political strategy?

I don't think so. But, then again, it did work for George W. Bush for quite awhile...at least until it all blew up in his face.

There's more...

This morning, President Obama held a press conference to officially nominate Gov. Kathleen Sebelius to head up the Department of Health and Human Services but while Sebelius's nomination was central to the presser, it was hardly the most important thing about it.

Before introducing Sebelius, the President announced the release of $155 billion of the American Recovery Act's funding to go toward 126 health centers around the country to help those in need.

From President Obama's prepared remarks (h/t Ezra Klein):

And today, I can announce that under the Recovery Plan we've put into action, $155 million will go toward supporting 126 new health centers across America. These health centers will expand access to care by helping people in need -- many with no health insurance -- obtain access to comprehensive primary and preventive health care services. That helps relieve the burden on emergency rooms across the country, which have become primary care clinics for too many who lack coverage -- often at taxpayer expense. This action will create thousands of new jobs, help provide health care to an estimated 750,000 low-income Americans across the country, and take another important step toward affordable, accessible health care for all.

You can see HHS's projections of patients served and jobs created by this funding on a state by state basis HERE.

Yet another crucial aspect of President Obama's remarks was a paragraph or two later, again, before Sebelius took the stage, when he framed health care reform as a "fiscal imperative."

Health care is one of the fastest-growing expenses in the federal budget, and it's one we simply cannot sustain.

That is why we cannot fail to act yet again. If we're going to help families, save businesses, and improve the long-term economic health of our nation, we must realize that fixing what's wrong with our health care system is no longer just a moral imperative, but a fiscal imperative. Health care reform that reduces costs while expanding coverage is no longer just a dream we hope to achieve -- it's a necessity we have to achieve.

Sebelius herself reiterated this argument in her remarks:

Ms. Sebelius said she shared the president's belief that "we can't fix the economy without fixing health care."

"The work won't be easy, but bringing about real change rarely is," Ms. Sebelius said.

And it echoes Peter Orazag's comments on This Week With George Stephanoloulos yesterday:

ORSZAG: But let's be clear about the health reform. Health care is the key to our fiscal future. We are going to make sure that it is not only self-financing over the next 5 to 10 years, which means if that revenue stream isn't available, something else will have to be.

And in addition, those reforms to health care, making the system more efficient, will help bend the curve over the long term and vastly improve our long-term fiscal future.

You'll recall too what Orszag and Obama said about health care reform at the fiscal summit last week:

Orszag said, "Let me be very clear: Health care reform is entitlement reform," adding, "The path of fiscal responsibility must run directly through health care." He cited efforts to limit health care costs as the "single most important thing we can do" for long-term fiscal stability.

Obama said, "Putting America on a sustainable fiscal course will require addressing health care," adding, "Many of you said what I believe, that the biggest source of our deficits is the rising cost of health care."

This message is key to the Obama administration's selling of health care reform (and has the added benefit of being true.) While the right will demonize Obama's health care proposals as "big government,""socialism" and "wasteful spending," the Obama administration -- and the left must follow suit -- will be making the case that these reforms are not only fiscally responsible, but fiscally necessary.

There's more...