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Cass Sunstein to head OIRA
Mr. Obama also was poised to name Cass R. Sunstein, an American legal scholar, to an existing White House post as the administrator of the Office of Information and Regulatory Affairs. A transition official said late Wednesday that Mr. Sunstein would oversee government regulations and devise new approaches for government efficiencies.
Here is the article. Here is Wikipedia on Sunstein; he is the co-author of Nudge and a very well-known law and economics scholar. He is now married to Samantha Power and he once had a pet Rhodesian Ridgeback. I have had many interactions with Cass Sunstein and he has been unfailing intelligent and gracious.
If you wish (and you are warned), here is a left-wing critique of Cass Sunstein.
Posted by Tyler Cowen on January 8, 2009 at 07:30 AM in Current Affairs | Permalink
Comments
This doesn't sound like the fast track to a Supreme Court appointment people have been predicting. Did he give up his new Harvard LS post for this?
Posted by: Tom at Jan 8, 2009 7:44:46 AM
Very few, even inside the Beltway, appreciate how important this post is.
Posted by: at Jan 8, 2009 8:19:23 AM
Forsooth! The world's most obnoxious blogger doesn't like Sunstein. Oh dear.
Posted by: at Jan 8, 2009 8:43:55 AM
could someone tell me why he mentioned the Ridgeback?
Posted by: Robbie at Jan 8, 2009 8:53:50 AM
When I last spoke to Prof. Eric Alterman, in a public forum, I was surprised at his definition of liberal, which came from Sir Isiah Berlin and could easily have been given by Tyler or Cass as definitions of their own positions, I think. The liber(al)tarian movement, or whatever you want to call it, seems to growing rapidly now in numbers and influence.
Posted by: StreetWalker at Jan 8, 2009 11:41:12 AM
Does anyone here want to see Sunstein on the Supreme Court? Because that's what you're likely to get.
Posted by: Kent Guida at Jan 8, 2009 12:10:55 PM
I would certainly take him, though he wouldn't be perfect. I suppose Obama is probably looking for a woman or minority.
Posted by: Tom at Jan 8, 2009 12:20:14 PM
world's most obnoxious blogger is right. wow! i should have heeded the warning...
Posted by: Doug at Jan 8, 2009 1:28:59 PM
Interesting. I just started reading one of his books I received as a gift for Christmas, "Infotopia."
Posted by: Ben Goering at Jan 8, 2009 2:18:43 PM
You failed to mention Bear, his German Shepherd (before the Ridgeback). Bear was among the 3 or 4 greatest dogs I have known.
Posted by: geoff at Jan 8, 2009 3:13:49 PM
And Alterman at his Altercation blog's new home on the Nation website likewise praises Cass' appointment today.
Posted by: StreetWalker at Jan 8, 2009 4:04:19 PM
That left-wing critique is hilarious. She thinks that behavioral economics is an advocate for free-market fundamentalism?!?! Maybe she should read his book The Second Bill of Rights and Radicals in Robes: Why Extreme Right-Wing Courts Are Wrong for America.
Posted by: brian at Jan 8, 2009 5:23:15 PM
She thinks that behavioral economics is an advocate for free-market fundamentalism?!?!
Is she the world's most obnoxious and pretentious blogger?
World's most obnoxious and dim-witted blogger?
Posted by: at Jan 8, 2009 5:45:06 PM
Thanks for linking me to that, Prof Cowen.
I feel a bit dumber for reading it. :/
Posted by: Robert Olson at Jan 8, 2009 8:11:31 PM
Daniel Klein writes some worrisome things about Sunstein:
"Sunstein hold that the nation-state is a voluntary organization (210), that the rules issuing from the government are voluntarily entered into like a corporation’s bylaws (217), that libertarian ideas of liberty are just “fairy tales” (216), and that, as the title of their first chapter declares, “All Rights Are Positive.” In their social democrat worldview, all things are owned, fundamentally and ultimately, by the government, and any decentralized exercise of property rights or contract is undertaken by its authorized delegation. “Private property [is] a creation of state action,” (66) “laws [enable property holders] to acquire and hold what is ‘theirs’” (230). The quotation marks on “theirs” are there to tell us: That car you drive everyday is really the property of the state; we just let you think it’s yours."
http://www.econjournalwatch.org/pdf/KleinCommentAugust2004.pdf
Yech!
Posted by: Brent at Jan 9, 2009 11:47:36 AM
