09/03: Will Geithner be the Fall Guy?
Category: Thinking Out Loud
Posted by: A Waco Farmer
Is the administration setting up Tim Geithner as a scapegoat?
Geithner was never an Obama confidant. In fact, he was one of the "cross-over" nominees. He was one of the early choices designed to make us feel more comfortable with the stealth president about whom we knew so little, save for his extreme liberal voting record and his penchant for associating with radicals.
Geithner hailed from the Rubin-Summers wing of the DLC-Bill Clinton centrist Democratic Party. Tapped to lead Treasury while has was the sitting president of the Federal Reserve Bank of New York, Geithner was then a Bush-appointee and already waist-deep in the immensely unpopular (but, nevertheless, essential) plan to rescue the financial sector of our economy.
Does the White House plan to let Geithner twist in the wind and then sack him at the most politically beneficial moment?
The Obama administration has not shown any urgency or even much inclination to concentrate resources on solving the banking crisis; in fact, they have disingenuously conflated the very serious banking problems with the much more familiar economic recession.
The Obama administration has already forced Geithner to the forefront with a half-baked plan, and done essentially nothing to make his life any easier.
As things continue to spiral downward, the Obama administration seems more and more prone to roil the waters with attacks on easy targets: fat cats, Rush Limbaugh, CNBC screaming heads, and the previous administration. In the coming days, at a moment of crisis, will Obama play the Geithner card? Fire the Treasury secretary and frame the move as the final break with the tired and bankrupt solutions of the past. No more Bush appointees. No more Robert Rubin acolytes. We need fresh approaches from the Paul Krugman-Robert Reich wing of the Democratic Party.
One other development worth noting: SNL, where company policy prohibits criticism of anything Obama, offered its first scorching rebuke of an Obama administration figure this weekend, skewering Geithner as lost and incompetent.
Prediction?
Granted, all this is way too conspiratorial--but, just in case, if I were Tim Geithner, I would watch my back.
UPDATE: A big Texas welcome to Instapundit readers.
Geithner was never an Obama confidant. In fact, he was one of the "cross-over" nominees. He was one of the early choices designed to make us feel more comfortable with the stealth president about whom we knew so little, save for his extreme liberal voting record and his penchant for associating with radicals.
Geithner hailed from the Rubin-Summers wing of the DLC-Bill Clinton centrist Democratic Party. Tapped to lead Treasury while has was the sitting president of the Federal Reserve Bank of New York, Geithner was then a Bush-appointee and already waist-deep in the immensely unpopular (but, nevertheless, essential) plan to rescue the financial sector of our economy.
Does the White House plan to let Geithner twist in the wind and then sack him at the most politically beneficial moment?
The Obama administration has not shown any urgency or even much inclination to concentrate resources on solving the banking crisis; in fact, they have disingenuously conflated the very serious banking problems with the much more familiar economic recession.
The Obama administration has already forced Geithner to the forefront with a half-baked plan, and done essentially nothing to make his life any easier.
As things continue to spiral downward, the Obama administration seems more and more prone to roil the waters with attacks on easy targets: fat cats, Rush Limbaugh, CNBC screaming heads, and the previous administration. In the coming days, at a moment of crisis, will Obama play the Geithner card? Fire the Treasury secretary and frame the move as the final break with the tired and bankrupt solutions of the past. No more Bush appointees. No more Robert Rubin acolytes. We need fresh approaches from the Paul Krugman-Robert Reich wing of the Democratic Party.
One other development worth noting: SNL, where company policy prohibits criticism of anything Obama, offered its first scorching rebuke of an Obama administration figure this weekend, skewering Geithner as lost and incompetent.
Prediction?
Granted, all this is way too conspiratorial--but, just in case, if I were Tim Geithner, I would watch my back.
UPDATE: A big Texas welcome to Instapundit readers.
glenn wrote: