Like many progressives I was disappointed to hear the line-up for Obama's economic team going into the general election. The lead figure will be Jason Furman, who was the director of the Hamilton Project at Brookings. This project is the brainchild of Robert Rubin the leading light of the Wall Street Democrats. While my friends and fellow progressive economists, Jared Bernstein and Jamie Galbraith are on the team (I have also been contacted), it is clear who has the leading role.

    I was disappointed by this line-up, but not surprised. After all, Senator Obama wants to be president.

    Thus far he has run a brilliant campaign overcoming Hillary Clinton's enormous advantage entering the race. But he still has a long way to go to get into the White House. One of the biggest potential obstacles in his path is the major media outlets who can still set the tone for political debate in this country.

    When it comes to economic issues the tone this crew sets is decidedly more in line with Wall Street than Main Street. This can be seen on issue after issue.

    They have trumpeted the Social Security "crisis" for more than a quarter century, convincing the bulk of the public that the program is on the edge of bankruptcy. While proponents of the crisis view are all over the news, editorial pages, and pundit shows, the basic facts about the program's finances are almost never mentioned.

    The non-partisan Congressional Budget Office projects that the program can pay all scheduled benefits for nearly 40 years with no changes whatsoever. And even if nothing is ever changed, Social Security will always be able to pay future retirees a higher benefit (adjusted for inflation) than current retirees receive. Where's the crisis?

    The media is even less tolerant of any views that dissent from the trade agenda of the Clinton-Bush years. They have enshrined the selective protectionism of these administrations as "free-trade," and caricatured anyone who opposes these deals as Neanderthal protectionists.

    Of course this dichotomy is absurd. NAFTA and the other trade deals are about selective protectionism. They are designed to put manufacturing workers, who tend to be less educated and less highly-paid, into direct competition with low-paid workers in the developing world, while leaving our most highly educated and highly paid workers (e.g. doctors, lawyers, and economists) largely protected. These deals also increase patent and copyright protection, two hugely distortionary forms of protection.

    And the media endlessly hype budget nonsense, touting balanced budgets as the cure for all evils. In this process they turn basic economics on its head, often arguing that a balanced budget will both raise the value of the dollar and reduce the trade deficit. (Sorry boys and girls, a balanced budget is supposed to lower interest rates and therefore reduce the value of the dollar. And, the high dollar is the cause of the trade deficit. If you want to reduce the trade deficit, then you want to reduce the value of the dollar, end of story.)

    And the media does its best to avoid talking about the failings of the Wall Street agenda. Did you see that great piece about how awful retirees would have fared if we had put their Social Security money in the stock market in the late 90s as the privatizers advocated? I missed that one too.

    How about the article that reported on how the collapse of the housing bubble led to the destruction of the savings of most of the middle class, since their primary asset was their house. Yeah, I haven't seen that article either.

    The reality is that if Obama had picked a progressive economist (a.k.a. a Neanderthal protectionist), who had not been initiated into the Wall Street club, he would have gotten beaten up so badly by the media that he would want Reverend Wright to come back for more press events.

    However much we might like to see Senator Obama openly embrace a progressive economic agenda, that is not going to happen because of the current political realities. As the Internet and alternative media outlets grow, and the reach of the establishment media shrivels, there will be more room for progressive economics and progressive economists, but we aren't there yet.

    Until then, we should keep our ammunition dry. Senator Obama's election can make an enormous difference in the political environment and the direction the country takes. But progressives must keep the pressure on. Senator Obama is an enormously talented political figure, but he alone is not going to bring about change. It takes a movement.