Things are moving fast with the Obama administration, as I suggested previously they would. They are in fact moving faster than even I foresaw… and I thought my statements on the matter long- played the voter anger out there by quite a bit. Turns out, even that was an under-estimation. You’ll recall at the end of one month of the new Obama administration, I observed:
In looking at all of this, I can’t help but wonder if we aren’t at or beyond a tipping point against Obama and the Democrats… even from people who supported their election. The amazing part is, whereas it took Bill Clinton quite literally years to get to this point, we’re only 30 days into the Obama presidency. We still have 1470 days, more or less, to go. Frankly, it’s becoming a question of him lasting quite that long.
This morning, James Joyner notes [1]:
A few weeks ago on OTB Radio, Dave Schuler predicted that Timothy Geithner would be out as Treasury Secretary by the end of the year. At the rate he’s going, he might not last to summer.
It’s bad enough his every public appearance causes the Dow to plummet. Now, he’s been openly contradicted by his boss on the AIG creating what NYT correspondent Jackie Calmes [2] has dubbed “perhaps the worst week in a string of bad weeks for the Treasury secretary.”
Mr. Geithner’s once-heralded credentials with Wall Street were already marred by false starts in revamping the Bush administration’s bank rescue program, even as his perceived closeness to financiers — he is the former president of the Federal Reserve Bank of New York — and unease with populist politics left Main Street skeptical.
On Wednesday, a junior Republican in Congress and some traders on Wall Street went so far as to call for him to quit or be fired. The Republican leader of the House, Representative John A. Boehner of Ohio, told a conservative talk-radio host that the secretary is “on thin ice.”
But Mr. Geithner’s boss, the president, interjected a vote of “complete confidence.”
Which is Washington speak for “I haven’t fired him yet.”
Timothy Geithner, scapegoat?
Indeed, that IS the standard translation. That, and “Don’t bother printing that order of business cards… you won’t need them”. But, given what we know of the White House and their ability to manipulate the press, (For example the Rush Limbaugh affair, just two weeks ago, now) one cannot help but look askance at the harmony being sung by the dinosaur outlets like the Times. Can, thereby, the press harping on this stuff be taken as an indication of the White House attitude and it’s future moves as regards Geithner? It does seem a reasonable assumption.
In my estimation, the only thing keeping Tim Geithner in a job is the question in Obama’s mind; “Will tossing Geithner to the wolves sate them enough to keep them from eating ME?”
I tend to think not, given I judge the size and depth of the anger out there to be far larger than one scape goat will feed. Desperation, though— which is surely what marks Obama’s position of late, will make one do things that are, shall we say, less than logical.
Even assuming he keeps Geithner around for whatever reason, he still has some serious rehab to do on the images of both Geithner and himself, a job that even the best of image consultants would turn down in a heartbeat.
And as James correctly points up, there’s not a lot in the history of Obama to make anyone think he’s inclined to spend that much political capital… something already in short supply…. on Geithner, or anyone else, for that matter. The already crowded underside of the Obama express is looing like the most obvious future residence of Mr. Tim Geithner. One wonder if at that point he’ll be legally accountable for being a tax cheat.
And what of Chris Dodd [3]?
It seems that Dodd, too, is intensely aware of the wolves sniffing around his door, and is thinking Geithner a convienient scapegoat. Jen Rubin at Commentary Magazine: [3]
Sam Stein [4]at the Huffington Posthas been digging around, trying to find out exactly what happened to the amendment to the stimulus bill offered by Sens. Wyden and Snowe which would have nixed the AIG bonuses. Fingers were pointed at Senate Banking Chair Chris Dodd. But yesterday on CNN, Dodd was part of this exchange:
CNN Producer: “There’s the suggestion today being made that you received more money from AIG than any other senator. And that you were responsible for the February 11th, 2009 date. Again, I just want to get — you’re saying you had nothing to do with . . .”
Senator Dodd: “Absolutely not.”
CNN Producer: “And there was nothing you were doing that was aimed at protecting AIG?”
Senator Dodd: “Not at all. Not in the slightest. . . . The point is when that language left the Senate I wrote, that was not included.”Today, on CNN’s Situation Room [5], Dodd changed his tune and implicated the Treasury Department. He did not name Geithner personally, but neither did he say Geithner was unaware of the goings on.
I can’t help but think that there will be other congressional Democrats caught in this web. One must also wonder how much of the misinformation about AIG was distributed based on orders directly from the only pol who was given a larger sum of campaign money than Chriss Dodd… Barack Obama.
Now, usually, when incidents happen early on in an administation, the party in power banks on the idea that the memory of the voter will be short enough so as not to affect the voting at the first mid-term election. In this case, no matter how this falls out, this mess has had such a high profile, it’s my guess it’ll take several cycles to erase the voter memory of it…. even assuming no criminal charges arise from this mess. At the moment, that seems an overlarge asumption.
Meanwhile, the Republicans…. the smart ones, at least… are sitting back and watching the Democrats boil in their own pudding.