Naomi Klein tells world to get over its crush on Obama

Naomi Klein, who was just awarded the inaugural $90,000 Warwick Prize for Writing in the UK for her best-selling book The Shock Doctrine, delivers harsh criticism of President Obama in an interview with the Times of London. The new president’s claim that “everything went wrong only eight years ago with the election of George W.Bush” is false, says Klein, who traces problems to  President Bill Clinton’s removal of Depression-era restrictions that prevented investment banks from also being commercial banks, his administration’s refusal to regulate the derivatives industry and its failed economic policy. “Frankly,” she says, “there was a huge amount of intellectual dishonesty in the election campaign and it’s weird that some people are still wearing T-shirts with a picture of the most powerful man in the world on them. They have to get over their crush and treat him for what he is - head of the largest military and economy in the world.” In Italy, she notes, students are brandishing the slogan ’We won’t pay for the crisis.’ It’s only that kind of dynamic that will lead to real change, says Klein who credits British PM Gordon Brown with  better handling of the banking crisis. “In the US, the love for Obama is a real liability,” she says.

The Times