Robert Rubin is a subprime asset

Thank goodness the press is finally starting to report factually about this turkey. Until now, Rubin has been shrouded in an absurdly heroic mantle. Goldman boy to Golden boy! Shrinker of the debt! Rubinomics! As if he invested the notion that our country shouldn’t carry and service a massive national debt. That he was ever seriously considered for a government role this time around is baffling.

When he was Treasury secretary during the Clinton administration, Mr. Rubin helped loosen Depression-era banking regulations that made the creation of Citigroup possible by allowing banks to expand far beyond their traditional role as lenders and permitting them to profit from a variety of financial activities. During the same period he helped beat back tighter oversight of exotic financial products, a development he had previously said he was helpless to prevent.

And since joining Citigroup in 1999 as a trusted adviser to the bank’s senior executives, Mr. Rubin, who is an economic adviser on the transition team of President-elect Barack Obama, has sat atop a bank that has been roiled by one financial miscue after another.