From Jonathan Bernstein:
A bizarre candidate for the Federal Reserve Board shows the president has learned nothing on the job.
Let’s just pause for a moment to consider all the ways that President Donald Trump’s plan to nominate pizza magnate Herman Cain to the Federal Reserve Board is evidence that he has no idea how to do his job.
To begin with: There are two open seats on the Fed board because Trump’s nominees during the last Congress, Nellie Liang and Marvin Goodfriend, went nowhere. Trump apparently couldn’t come up with candidates who could both advance his preferences on monetary policy and regulation and also get confirmed by the Senate. So the spots remain vacant. Trump’s not the only president to leave Fed seats open way too long; Barack Obama made the same mistake repeatedly. But these are important positions, and leaving them unfilled substantially reduces the president’s policy influence.
Next, Herman Cain is, to put it as nicely as possible, an unconventional choice.