THE BURNED OVER DISTRICT

Frank Rich looks at two of President Obama's biggest problems today. Two of his biggest problems that should be two be two of his biggest successes. Trouble is the company he keeps. On the financial front his two generals just happen to be a pair of birds with too much invested in the status quo to lead any fight for change.

A tip-off to what was coming appeared in a Washington Post op-ed article that the administration’s two financial gurus, Lawrence Summers and Timothy Geithner, wrote to preview their plan. “Some people will say that this is not the time to debate the future of financial regulation, that this debate should wait until the crisis is fully behind us,” they wrote by way of congratulating themselves on taking charge.

Who exactly are these “some people” who want to delay debate on the future of regulation? Not anyone you or I know. Most Americans were desperate for action and wondered why it was taking so long. The only people who Summers and Geithner could possibly be talking about are the bankers in their cohort who helped usher us into this disaster in the first place. Both men are protégés of one of them, Robert Rubin, the former wise man of Citigroup.

And now it looks like his key legislation, health care reform will be disabled by a series of own goals from his "team" in the Senate lead by Majority Leader Milquetoast from Nevada. And the President seems to keep himself above the fray, letting other get dirty in the fight for what he says is important.

It’s still not too late for course correction. Before rolling out his financial package, Obama illustrated exactly what’s lacking when he told John Harwood on CNBC: “We want to do it right. We want to do it carefully. But we don’t want to tilt at windmills.”

Maybe not at windmills, but sometimes you do want to do battle with fierce and unrelenting adversaries, starting with the banking lobby. While the restraint that the president has applied to the Iran crisis may prove productive, domestic politics are not necessarily so delicate. F.D.R. had to betray his own class to foment the reforms of the New Deal. Lyndon Johnson had to crack heads on Capitol Hill to advance the health-care revolution that was Medicare. So will Obama for his own health-care crusade, which is already faltering in the Senate courtesy of truants in his own party, not just the irrelevant Republicans.

We agree that he should not tilt at windmills, but it sure would be nice if he started kicking ass and taking names. Political scalps may be messy but they sure look good hanging from your lodgepole.