WASHINGTON - February 13 - "Sometimes, I think the team of rivals is Obama versus his own staff because I think his own instincts are somewhat better than theirs, but until he gets control of this they are going to be pulling him to the right," says Kuttner, co-founder and co-editor of The American Prospect Magazine.

Kuttner argues that Obama's economic advisors are plagued by conventional thinking on everything from budget deficits to the role of government.  Even his Secretary of the Treasury, Timothy Geithner, is only rebuilding the old failed system through his banking bill.  

"I think he ended up with a bunch of centrists at best who were the perpetrators, along with the Republicans in Congress, of all this deregulation that got us into this problem," says Kuttner.  

"Here's Rubin, he's been twice disgraced.  He was disgraced as Treasury Secretary, when you look at all the deregulation he presided over.  Then he was disgraced again as the guy who helped run Citigroup into the ground, but he still has this ability to pull the strings in terms of the number of protégés who he's placed in key positions in terms of his own son being on the transition team in a key power role." 

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