Sirota: Warren not interested in ‘Hillary Clinton model’ of sitting down and shutting up

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Appearing with “The Young Turks” host Cenk Uygur on Tuesday, author David Sirota critiqued Sen. Elizabeth Warren’s (D-MA) recent grilling of the nation’s top financial regulators, saying it’s the first evidence we’ve seen that Warren is showing no interest in “the Hillary Clinton model” of sitting down and shutting in hopes of earning the right to be taken seriously.

“What’s un-serious is the notion that a senator shouldn’t ask serious questions about the biggest financial meltdown in contemporary history,” he said.

“When it comes to Democratic senators, what you hear is, ‘Please follow the Hillary Clinton model,’ that’s what it’s basically called,” Sirota said. “Hillary Clinton came in and she had star power and she laid low and didn’t do very much. Same thing for Barack Obama in the U.S. Senate. The expectation, if not the mandate for liberal senators is, only can you be taken seriously if you follow this model that says essentially, sit down and shut up.”

“The encouraging thing about Elizabeth Warren is, I think she’s saying, ‘You know what, I’m not playing by those rules, I’m going to play by rules that says I’m here as a senator, I campaigned on things…’” he added. “[She's saying] ‘I campaigned on themes. I made certain promises to voters about what I would stand up for, and the serious thing to do is to stand up for those things and to fulfill those pledges when I’m in office.”

This video is from “The Young Turks,” aired Tuesday, Feb. 19, 2013.