Michael Hiltzik: Biden nominee Omarova faces an ugly attack because banks know she'd be a tough regulator
Amid all the crass stupidities and rank hypocrisy directed at Saule T. Omarova, President Biden's nominee as comptroller of the currency, one remark stands apart.
"I don't mean any disrespect," Sen. John N. Kennedy, R-La., told Omarova at her Senate Banking Committee confirmation hearing on Nov. 18 in his folksiest head-shaking manner. "I don't know whether to call you 'professor' or 'comrade.' "
Senate observers have long been accustomed to the Oxford-educated Kennedy's Gomer Pyle act; if he choose to play to the rubes gallery, all we can say is bless his heart.
In this case, however, he has used his schtick to advance one of the uglier attacks on a nominee in recent memory.
Its theme is that Omarova, who is currently a law professor at Cornell but was born and raised in the former Soviet Union, is some sort of secret communist bent on overturning the American way of banking.
Omarova's upbringing has emerged as a principal concern for Republicans like Kennedy, and a small handful of congressional Democrats, because they're fronting for the banking industry.
