Posted by
Mike Bates on Thursday, September 18, 2008 8:06:53 PM
CNN's Situation Room today featured a
Wolf Blitzer interview with
former Defense Secretary William Cohen. As a lead in to the interview,
White House correspondent Elaine Quijano reported on President Bush's
actions to quiet the country's financial jitters. She wrapped up:
QUIJANO: Meantime, fellow Republicans are blasting the
Bush administration, questioning why taxpayer dollars are being used to
bail out private firms, and they say officials did not consult with
them ahead of time. But the White House says, officials did the best
that they could amid the fast-moving crisis -- Wolf.
BLITZER: All right, Elaine, thanks very much. Let's assess what's
going on with the former Defense Secretary William Cohen, a former U.S.
senator. He's chairman and CEO of the Cohen Group here in Washington.
First of all, you were a Republican member of the House, a member of
the Senate a long time. We're seeing these Republicans, including
Republican leaders, now coming out pretty -- pretty critical of the
president himself.
WILLIAM COHEN, CNN WORLD AFFAIRS ANALYST: Well, Wolf, I said for
many, many years, government is always the enemy, until you need a
friend.
And I think that has been the posture, I think, of too many
political leadership, always pointing the finger, saying, get
government off our backs. You're nothing but a bunch of bureaucrats.
Well, bureaucrats are public servants, civil servants. The
government is necessary. You can't have a totally unlimited free market
economy without the government having some regulatory responsibility.
(CROSSTALK)
BLITZER: So, what you're saying is, all this deregulation in recent years, some of it may have been counterproductive.
COHEN: What you need is a Goldilocks solution, not too heavy, not
too light, not too hot, not too cold, something in which there is a
regulatory scheme which in fact does oversee the responsibilities of
the Congress and also the administration, to make sure that you don't
have cowboys, basically, ignoring the fundamentals of our economy.
Interestingly, Blitzer didn't ask Cohen about his connection to American International Group (AIG). Cohen serves on AIG's board of directors and has since his election to that position in 2004.
AIG, of course, received an $85 billion government bailout earlier
this week. Blitzer could have introduced a line of questions centering
on what responsibilities board directors have in avoiding the turmoil
that's afflicted the U.S. economy. Were directors asleep at the
switch? What fiscal oversight should they have provided? Does Cohen
accept any personal responsibility for what's happened?
No such potentially embarrassing questions were asked. Instead,
Cohen was allowed to speak about the prudence of government
intervention. No doubt he thinks it's great AIG has "a friend" in
Washington to prop it up.