Poor little Timmy. Everyone keeps picking on him and - gasp! - they even say he's a tool of Wall Street. But, but, but, but...the Washington Post says it's not true because he never worked for a Wall Street bank. Uh yeah, great try except that Timmy Geithner was in fact working on Wall Street in charge of the Federal Reserve Bank of New York. The last time I checked, that means he was working with the Wall Street folks, no? The issue here that the Post somehow misses is that many believe his tenure at the Fed was marred by a cozy relationship with Wall Street.
He was supposed to at least be awake and following what was happening. Yes he has been a public servant but that doesn't excuse his failures at the Fed during one of the worst Wall Street meltdowns in modern history. The Post can have fun with blasting unions - the right is really keen to do that these days - but maybe they can also gather all of the details before pointing the finger of the details that others may have missed. Maybe Geithner wasn't working on Wall Street for a bank, but he sure has been friendly with them before he arrived at Treasury and now. How about the Post checks their own facts instead of leaving out critical details?
Part of Geithner’s appeal to the Obama camp is that it’s pretty hard to accuse him of being a tool of corporate America, a shill for big finance, or whatever alarmist moniker you prefer, since he’s been taking home relatively tiny paychecks of one type or another his whole career. So it’s a little astonishing that this Geithner-as-Wall-Street-servant meme still has life -- and in an oversight panel on the substance of TARP policy, no less. His employment history, apparently, hasn’t stopped critics such as Silvers -- or the Code Pink brigade that showed up to yesterday’s hearing in order to scream at the Treasury secretary about how “we” need a bailout, not wealthy bankers -- from trying to take digs into his integrity. Indeed, the AIG bonuses issue seems to have been a key moment for Geithner’s critics. Take the post-AIG accusation from Rep. Charles Rangel (D-N.Y.) that people like Geithner think it’s “natural” to get “$6 million” bonuses. Or Arianna Huffington’s anti-Geithner diatribe last month, which uses the Treasury secretary’s position on AIG bonuses, among other things, to conclude that he’s a reflection of a chummy, corrupt Washington-Wall Street axis.Why doesn't the Post just call us all communists so they can do a high five with their Republican friends? He has been chummy and he failed miserably at the Fed but who really needs to talk about his years in New York?
