Salmon on Rubin

Felix Salmon takes Robert Rubin to task for dodging his responsibility for the present financial crisis, a substantial litany of active and passive participation, that concludes with this gem:

Robert Rubin, Goldman Sachs arbitrageur and chairman, US treasury secretary, and Citigroup grandee, was the Forrest Gump of this crisis, turning up in all the key places at all the key times. The fact that he’s still trying to deflect blame off himself and onto the hapless George W Bush is simply pathetic. There’s more than enough bad stuff to pin on Bush that he really shouldn’t blame the crisis on him as well. Especially not when he’s so personally culpable for the crisis.

The sad truth is that every president has to cope with the mess his predecessor (and the predecessor’s appointees) left behind. Each in turn hands off a usually bigger mess to his successor. Clean slates are rare, indeed.

That’s true of President Obama, too. On TARP, Iraq, Afghanistan, and a host of foreign and domestic issues, while he may complain about the mess that President Bush left, he’s also largely working from the same script that Bush did. What’s remarkable about American policy is its continuity despite the passage of time, the changing of presidents, and the alternations between parties.

That’s not to say that continuity is always good. It’s not.

But the forces that operated on President Clinton and the constraints he had continued to influence President Bush and have passed right along to President Obama. The continuity isn’t completely surprising.