What's most disturbing, however, is the president's on-again, off-again focus on financial reform. Despite its arcane nature, the issue is still a politically hot topic as we head into a fall election with the economy still rocky and Wall Street apparently still unrepentant and unrestrained. "Everybody's just deferring to Summers and Geithner. Doesn't the president realize he's got a big flank exposed here?" says one Democratic staffer who is pushing for tougher restrictions on Wall Street. "We get through health care, we finally have the opportunity to do something positive on Wall Street reform and we just go ahead and focus on nuclear disarmament and climate change?"The bottom line is that apart from a new "resolution authority" used to take over and liquidate failing nonbanks—a power that is likely to affect what happens only after the next crisis hits—the Dodd bill is fast turning into a nonevent. And that may become more likely if the Connecticut senator seeks yet again to compromise with Republicans, watering down the bill further (for example, by stripping the Consumer Financial Protection Agency, which Dodd has already housed at the Fed in deference to the GOP, of some of its independent powers). Compromise will become the easier path as the economy gradually improves, the memory of the Wall Street–engendered crash recedes and Dodd approaches his retirement desperate for a legacy. "We're gonna wake up one day, tomorrow or two weeks from tomorrow, and there's going to be a deal between Dodd and the Banking Committee Republicans," the Democratic staffer says. And that will be the end of reform. One can only hope the president realizes what's at stake.