Opinion

GUNNING FOR GEITHNER

SHOULD he stay or should he go?

To listen to the media and many in Congress, President Obama is about to kick Treasury Secretary Timothy Geithner to the curb over the AIG bonus fiasco.

Friday, Bloomberg News reported that JP Morgan Chase CEO Jamie Dimon is a potential replacement for Geithner. And the chattering class has read Obama’s steadfast defense of his embattled economic chief as a sign of impending doom: If you have to defend him, he must be in trouble.

In fact, there’s zero chance of Geithner leaving anytime soon. As a Democratic strategist with close ties to the Obama camp pointed out, it would be politically deadly for the president to admit failure of his Treasury secretary so early in the administration. How would that inspire confidence?

More important, nobody in the administration blames Geithner. He may be a poor spokesman but the policy is a community effort. Says another insider, “You think Obama took the hit on Geithner’s tax issue just to dump him a few months in?” Enough said.

What some expect to see is a new economic spokesperson anyone notice Larry Summers popping up more on TV? since Geithner doesn’t exactly shine in the public eye.

Leadership sources on the Hill say the same thing. Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid’s office called rumors that Democrats are calling for Geithner’s head on a platter, “Much ado about nothing.” Speaker Nancy Pelosi’s office concurs.

It’s easy to see why people might think otherwise. Congress has been throwing a bipartisan populist hissy fit with members pointing fingers at everyone but themselves. But Congress saying it wants to find out who approved the bonuses for AIG is like OJ saying he wants to find the real killer.

Consider Rep. Maxine Waters (D-Calif.), who’s been demanding to know “who knew what when.” In an interview, MSNBC’s Norah O’Donnell pressed her about the fact that Congress had an opportunity to read the legislation and oppose the bonuses before they became law. Waters’ defiant answer: “You don’t read everything. I don’t read everything.”

And people think Tim Geithner is the problem?

Republicans, meanwhile, have been vilifying Geithner as incompetent. Rep. Connie Mack (R-Fla.) said last week that Geithner should either resign or be fired. Because, if you can’t get the worst economy since the Great Depression turned around in two months, you’re clearly a moron.

Never mind the man has almost no staff. Part of the problem is that the administration is terrified of hiring anyone who might have not paid $500 in taxes that they didn’t even know they owed. (The realistic fear is that our small-minded media will cast a minor infraction as political Armageddon.) Then there’s the Obama team’s silly ban on ex-lobbyists. Bottom line: Treasury should be fully staffed around 2012.

The bonuses are about one tenth of one percent of the overall AIG bailout money in short, this “problem” is a tiny part of the overall crisis. How is the “solution” to fire Geithner, who was acting in what he believed to be the best interests of the country?

For all the talk to the contrary, the bailout money is not a “reward” to the people who helped create the financial mess. It’s assistance meant to avert the complete collapse of the US economy.

Quibble if you like over whether the plan is a good one, but it’s farcical to suggest that Geithner was doing anything nefarious. He was trying to get as many banks on board with the plan as he could and saw resisting the bonuses as an impediment to that goal. Speed was of the essence.

Now, months after the fact, members of Congress are armchair-quarterbacking decisions they could have involved themselves in earlier if they weren’t truly, embarrassingly incompetent.

Watching their buffoonery on national TV as they mugged for the cameras and lambasted AIG chief Edward Liddy who signed up for $1 a year to head the ailing firm, and had nothing to do with its collapse was truly a new low in congressional politics.

You want to fire someone? Fire Congress.

kirstenpowers@aol.com