DOES PRESIDENT OBAMA want his bank plan to fail?
UPDATE: A cynical reader emails:
I have a feeling there’s even more to this story, namely, that the reason Geithner is rattling around Treasury alone (except for the interns) is because, when the banks do fail, it’ll be convenient for Obama to push him under the bus. They won’t have to sort through which deputies were part of Timmy’s mess, since there aren’t any there now. Also, why make a perfectly good candidate undergo the hearing process, only to be purged when the boss-man at Treasury fails?
Obama made a big public deal of saying if Geithner tendered his resignation he wouldn’t accept it. To many pundits, that seemed like an unequivocal support of Timmy. But I think the possibly real intention was to keep his fall-guy in place long enough for the push…
Obama’s scapegoat will get all the blame when the plan fails, and Obama can appear to be free of any taint when Timmy’s forced out. Win-win for the O man…
Among the questions the media will probably fail to ask are: why did the administration wait so long to fill the deputy positions at Treasury, when the economy was probably the biggest and most pressing issue they had before them, and obviously Geithner couldn’t address those problems all by himself? If Obama’s so smart, how is it he apparently surrounds himself with incompetents incapable of doing their jobs? Should we be concerned about his judgment in other areas, as well?
Too cynical?