Tim Geithner, a Man Under Siege

Forget that aging process a president goes through, this Gaggler is betting that Tim Geithner is getting some major grey hair these days. Just look at the picture above from today’s New York Times; The guy seriously looks like he wants to crawl in a cave and hide. Honestly, who wants to be him? As we noted earlier, President Obama came out Wednesday and stood by his man, expressing “complete confidence” in Geithner and said, notably, that it wasn’t Geithner that wrote all these bad contracts. Sure, we get it. But, as the Times notes this morning, it’s a fair question: How in the world did Geithner, who has been working on these issues for months, not know about AIG’s impending bonuses? Edward Liddy, AIG’s government-appointed CEO, told Congress yesterday that he and his colleagues have been telling the Federal Reserve for months about the coming bonuses, assuming that Fed officials, in turn, have been keeping the Treasury in the loop. Guess not—well, at least that’s their story now. Knowing this town, plenty of other shoes are bound to drop. The whole episode just raises a big question: Who in Washington actually knows what’s going on with all the companies taxpayers have been bailing out for months? Anyone, anyone? (Bueller, Bueller?) The public may not be blaming the Obama administration for what president described yesterday as the “bad hand” they’ve been dealt, but that grace period won’t last forever—especially if current officials seem to be totally out of the loop.