THE WASHINGTON POST LOOKS AT TIM GEITHNER’S FEDERAL RESERVE CAREER AND SAYS HE “FELL SHORT.”

Before Timothy Geithner became Treasury chief, he regulated major U.S. banks. Now he says: “We’re having a major financial crisis in part because of failures of supervision.”

Heh. Read the whole thing.

I, FOR ONE, WELCOME our new robot overlords.

READER DENNIS MILLER EMAILS: “Do you think Senator [Lamar] Alexander or any of his staff will be at the Knoxville TEA Party? I’ve inquired via email several times and have no response from his office. Have you heard about any other office holders being there?” No, but I’m not one of the organizers or anything. I hope they’ve invited elected officials. For all I know, of course, Lamar is planning to attend the Nashville Tea Party instead.

UPDATE: Here’s the Knoxville Tea Party website.

HMM. THIS DOESN’T MATCH THE OVERHEATED PRESS REPORTS FROM BEFORE THE ELECTION: No forensic match for ammo in Blackwater shooting. “FBI scientists were unable to match bullets from a deadly 2007 Baghdad shooting to guns carried by Blackwater Worldwide security guards, according to laboratory reports that leave open the possibility that insurgents also fired in the crowded intersection.”

IF THIS IS TRUE, WE CLEARLY NEED MORE AIRPLANES: “President Obama’s European visit this week has strained Air Force heavy-airlift capabilities and obliged the military to hire more foreign contractors to help resupply U.S. and allied forces in Afghanistan, according to military sources. The large delegation traveling with the president in Europe required moving several transports, including jumbo C-5s and C-17s, from sorties ferrying supplies to Afghanistan to European bases for the presidential visit, said two military officials familiar with the issue. They spoke on the condition of anonymity to avoid any misunderstanding with White House officials.”

Alternatively, either (1) Obama could take a smaller-than-500 entourage; or (2) Some of these people could have flown commercial. One thing’s for sure — this would have been a bigger story if it had been Bush.

WHILE THE TEA PARTY PROTESTS GET LESS PRESS THAN THEY DESERVE, note this Obama astroturf:

At Democratic National Committee headquarters yesterday morning, party workers were loading minivans with Xerox boxes, each addressed to a different congressional office. It was a classic campaign canvassing operation — except that the next election is 19 months away. “Supporters of President Obama’s Budget to Hand Deliver 642,000 Pledges Gathered from Around the Country to Capitol Hill,” announced the Democrats’ news release. CNN and the Huffington Post dutifully reported the DNC’s claim of 642,000 pledges. Network cameras and the BBC showed up to film the operation. “We had one of the big printers downstairs smoking last night,” party spokesman Brad Woodhouse said.

In fact, the canvassing of Obama’s vaunted e-mail list of 13 million people resulted in just 114,000 pledges — a response rate of less than 1 percent.

Well, that’s still better than the pro-stimulus “house parties” did.

A WARNING: “Former House speaker Newt Gingrich is warning of a third party mutiny in 2012 if Republicans don’t figure out a way to shape up.” It could happen. People think the Tea Party protests are pro-Republican, but they aren’t, really, and they could easily turn pro-third party if the GOP doesn’t live up to its small-government claims. And that’s not a living-up it’s been very good at in recent years.

MARK STEYN: “So let me see if I understand American protocol in the age of Obama: The First Lady hugs Queen Elizabeth as if she’s some granny at a seniors’ center photo-op, but the President of this republic prostrates himself before King Abdullah as if he’s a subject of the Saudi pseudo-Crown. This is a very weird presidency.”

PLANNING TO ATTEND A TEA PARTY PROTEST? Please join the PJTV citizen reporter corps and help with coverage. PJTV will have crews out, but with 300-500 tea parties scheduled, no media organization will be able to cover them all. So cover them yourselves, and let PJTV help get the word out! (Repeated).

A REPUBLICAN WAR ON SCIENCE! “This morning NPR ran an interesting story suggesting Congress disregarded the relevant science when it passed a ban on certain phthalates in children’s toys. The measure may have been backed by Democrats, such as Senators Feinstein and Boxer, but it was signed by President Bush. More evidence of a Republican ‘War on Science.'”

A SENATE Tea Party resolution.

PJTV: The Top Top Conservative On Twitter.

FEAR: Shea-Porter Staff Seeks “Refuge” from Tea Bag.

MICHAEL YON: Obama plan for Afghanistan, Pakistan short on bold.

RICHARD EPSTEIN on Barack Obama.

HOPE AND CHANGE: “Don’t think we’re not keeping score, brother.”

UPDATE: Various readers point out that “keeping score” works both ways. Well, yes.

NOT HAPPY WITH THE G20, in the Cayman Islands.

WHAT EVERY KID NEEDS: Giant Star Wars pool toys and kites.

But don’t give your kid this. Ugh.

INDICTED: Blago Meets RICO.

NOT SQUEEZ BACON: Five Foods That I Wish Were April Fool’s Jokes.

HERE’S A REPORT on plans for a Nashville Tea Party protest on April 15.

GET YOUR PICS ON ROUTE 66: A cool gallery of Route 66 photos.

MEET THE NEW BOSS, YADA YADA: The Words Have Changed, but Have the Policies?

It’s almost like this movie.

WHO NEEDS A GUN — THE GOVERNMENT WILL PROTECT YOU:

A Queens judge ruled yesterday that subway employees do not have to do anything but pick up their phones if they see a crime — as he threw out a suit against the MTA and two workers who did nothing more to stop a rape.

A conductor saw the rape from the window on his train, and a station agent in the booth witnessed a screaming woman being dragged down a staircase inside the desolate 21st Street station of the G line. But neither one left the safety of their assigned posts to help her.

In a previous day, in a different culture, such men would have been afraid of being called cowards for failing to help a woman under such circumstances. Nowadays, they’re probably proud of acting “sensibly.” (For the record, the story says their names are Harmodio Cruz and John Koort.) And in a different world, Judge Kevin Kerrigan would have been ashamed to describe picking up a phone as “prompt and decisive action.” But he probably thinks it is.

Eric Holder talked about a “nation of cowards.” This is the real thing.

UPDATE: Reader Pierre Honeyman writes:

I agree with you, in principle, about cowardly men not acting to help people who need it, but allowing lawsuits to succeed in cases such as the one cited is a slippery slope. Having a legal principle that requires action, rather than the “Good Samaritan” laws which prevent punishing it, seems to me to be a rather slippery slope. As a law professor you surely know more about what kinds of legal precedents would be set by successful lawsuits of this nature, and I could very well be wrong, but it just seems wrong, somehow, to be able to sue someone who didn’t help you. I don’t think I’m comfortable with forcing people to consider legal hazard over physical hazard. I use that to argue for self-defense, including concealed carry, and the same argument applies here.

Well, actually I believe that traditionally common carriers — which I think the subway system would be — were required to protect against the foreseeable criminal acts of third parties, and I’d say a rape in a subway station is foreseeable. But standards tend to slip when it’s the government, for some reason. My point, however, was not about litigation, but about culture.

WHERE GADGETS go to die.