Lonely Geithner

Shameful is the word:

"There is an area that I think is, I don't know, shameful is the word," Paul Volcker said this morning at a Joint Economic Committee hearing. "The Secretary of the Treasury is sitting there without a deputy, without any undersecretaries, without any, as far as I know, assistant secretaries responsible in substantive areas at a time of very severe crisis. He shouldn't be sitting there alone."

Vipal Monga is already hearing conspiracy theories:

Our source also took a sympathetic view toward Geithner, who is increasingly being portrayed as sitting alone in his office at Fifteen Street and Pennsylvania Avenue. "It's like he's being set up by Obama to fail," the source says, noting that the president's touting of Geithner's rescue plan did much to set up unrealistic expectations for the Treasury secretary's poorly received speech, which introduced his Financial Stability Plan on Feb. 10.

This is weird: there's no reason for Obama to throw Geithner under the bus at this early date, no matter how much power Larry Summers is wielding behind the scenes. (Remember, though, that when Vikram Pandit went to Washington last week, he looked to Summers for guidance on the Obama administration's view on Citigroup.) My suspicion is that it's more cock-up than conspiracy.

But this is the single most important department in the executive branch, and there's no room for cock-ups, especially not ones of this magnitude. Geithner was nominated in November, ferchrissakes, and it's going to be March before he's capable of getting any work done. That's just wrong, when the global financial system is falling apart around his ears.

Obama ran what was probably the most efficient presidential election campaign of all time, and there was great hope that that efficiency would carry through to the White House. So far, however, there's been precious little sight of it since November 4. Which is dispiriting, to say the least.

Comments

[morph366:]

It's a trade-off decision for Obama - would he look bad if he hangs Geithner out to dry too early or even worst if he allows Geithner to go in front of the world's media on an ongoing basis and continue to disappoint and convey the sense that the job is too big for him. Hard decision for a new President to make especially when people are losing confidence and getting angrier with every new trillion dollar commitment.

Feb 27 04:33 AM

[Bartlesby:]

The first mistake was to nominate Geithner as Secretary. The man who was responsible for overseeing the NY banks during the last 5 years is now responsible to turn the ship around. This is complete lunacy. We might as well hire Angelo Mozilo to run Fannie and Freddie.

Investors and the media have discussed ad nauseum the uncertainty that Geithner and the administration have caused through lack of details, delaying announcements, etc. Another way to look at this situation is that Geithner/the White House have actually removed uncertainty. They have made it rather clear that they are ill-equipped to manage the crisis right now.

There are no easy answers and no quick fixes, but poor decision-making and a lack of credibility are making a bad situation much, much worse.


On Feb 27 04:33 AM morph366 wrote:

> It's a trade-off decision for Obama - would he look bad if he hangs
> Geithner out to dry too early or even worst if he allows Geithner
> to go in front of the world's media on an ongoing basis and continue
> to disappoint and convey the sense that the job is too big for him.
> Hard decision for a new President to make especially when people
> are losing confidence and getting angrier with every new trillion
> dollar commitment.

Feb 27 11:51 AM

[Socialism c...:]

"This is weird: there's no reason for Obama to throw Geithner under the bus at this early date..."

The HELL there isn't!!! Timmy is a TAX CHEAT. We DEMAND he be thrown under the bus!!! And is it a surprise he can't find any deputies??? Who wants to work for a tax cheat? And who wants a Treasury job right now?

Feb 27 12:24 PM

[Chris V:]

In general, I give Obama a lot of credit for the speed and quality of his tactical thinking -- he figured out in a few days how to win the media war of words over the stimulus package, and managed to save it and push it through.

But in retrospect, I think both the choice of Geithner and his subsequent performance have been pretty underwhelming. And I'm surprised he's been allowed to continue being this underwhelming for this long. But I'm pretty sure this fiasco isn't being ignored -- I bet there's a lot of private talk going on, and the next thing we hear will be the new plan.

Feb 27 03:07 PM