What I can't figure out about the furor of Barack Obama's decision to name Jason Furman his economic policy director is where have these people been? This is like getting pissed at Project Runway because it's a show about clothes. Austen Goolsbee, Obama's top economics adviser is from the University of Chicago (business school, which is a bit different than economics department, but still!). When Michael Moore's Sicko came out, he wrote a review of it for Slate that argued against a single payer solution in America. Obama's social and economic policy has been relentlessly center-left, focused on tax cuts and renewable energy credits. His health plan was the only one of the major three to not even attempt universality. This stuff is no surprise. Obama has many virtues, but his domestic policy has been consistently center-left. Those who're shocked simply haven't been paying attention. Meanwhile, as Matt says, Furman has been very heterodox on Wal-Mart (in ways that I think partly right and brilliant and partly wrong and short-sighted), but he was a staunch ally during the Social Security privatization fight, and did as much as any economist not named Dean Baker to push back on the then-pervasive idea that Social Security was in crisis and required conservative reform. The Left would be smart to convince Obama to add a persuasive, rigorous, labor economist like Jared Bernstein or Josh Bivens to his team, but they shouldn't fool themselves into thinking Obama has just made some staffing error here. Rather, he's been consistent in his economic policies and staff picks throughout the campaign, and there's every reason to think his actions reflect his underlying beliefs. But if unions wanted an economic lefty, they should've endorsed John Edwards in the primary, or at least demanded that Obama staff up with trusted labor types in order to gain their support back when he was in a close primary race. To get pissed now is like yelling at someone because they didn't lock the doors after you let the horses out.
