Feb 16, 2009 01:17 PM
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Wed Feb 10
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Here's something for conspiracy theorists: earlier this month, news emerged that the wife of financier Steven Rattner got a DUI last year, which was conveniently not reported upon. Now Rattner's Obama administration job has disappeared.
Media beef-starter Michael Wolff strongly implied that the New York papers had done Steven Rattner—former NYT reporter turned mediacentric private equity guy—a favor by seeing to it that news of his wife's drunk driving arrest on the Throgs Neck Bridge didn't get covered. (True? Maybe, maybe not. Whether Rattner's wife is famous enough to qualify for scandal coverage is a borderline call). Rattner was reportedly one of Obama's leading choices for Car Czar, to save our great US auto industry. Today: the Car Czar job has disappeared.
President Obama has dropped the idea of appointing a single, powerful "car czar" to oversee the revamping of General Motors and Chrysler and will instead keep the politically delicate task in the hands of his most senior economic advisers, a top administration official said Sunday night...
It was not clear why the administration changed course or whether Mr. Rattner would have a role on the task force.
Considering all the Obama scandals so far, it's definitely possible they ruled out Rattner to save themselves some headaches. If so, Michael Wolff has a fun new enemy! [Pic via Esther Dyson]
Send an email to Hamilton Nolan, the author of this post, at Hamilton@gawker.com.
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