[P]rotecting consumers, ensuring that they aren’t the victims of predatory financial practices, is something voters can relate to. And choosing a high-profile consumer advocate to lead the agency providing that protection — someone whose scholarship and advocacy were largely responsible for the agency’s creation — is the natural move, both substantively and politically. Meanwhile, the alternative — disappointing supporters yet again by choosing some little-known technocrat — seems like an obvious error.That's from the Nobel Prize-winning Paul Krugman, arguing for Elizabeth Warren to head the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau. If Treasury Secretary Timothy Geithner doesn't get along with her, all the better. Obama needs to hear differing views, and not just from Republicans.
Warren, a Harvard law professor, has excellent credentials. When Sen. Chris Dodd questioned whether she could be confirmed, I got flashbacks to the question of whether Hillary Clinton could be elected. For more on her background and views, read this in Guernica.
P.S. My blogmate, Anthony McCarthy, supported Warren in a post Jan. 24. I don't know the vacationing Echidne's views on the subject.