Wonkette
Well this is terribly disappointing! After a veritable two weeks of post-election speculation about our future Secretary of the Treasury, with an endless parade of sexist buffoons and kindly forest-giants to choose from, Barack Obama goes for some dude named Tim Geithner who appears to be of normal stature and possessed of no serious personality defects. YAWN.
Let’s review:
- President of the New York Fed.
- Youngish.
- Not bad-looking.
- Has worked for the Treasury for a million years, since 1988, under five different Secretaries.
JESUS CHRIST HE IS GIVING US NOTHING TO WORK WITH HERE. We’ll just have to hope Obama goes with the half-Mexican womanizer for Commerce, as threatened.
Geithner likely to be Treasury Secretary [First Read]
Yay! A good pick.
He has hair now, but will be bald after one year. Mark my words.
Which half of Richardson is Mexican again? Top or bottom?
Well he should do great, considering our Treasury consists of a few shiny pennies, a stick of gum and a yo-yo.
At least Tim isn’t enormously tall (Volcker), comically short (Reich) or hatin’ on the wimminz (Summers)
His seeming normalness is obviously hiding a penchant for meth, gay sex, murders, and a third nipple.
Or is Rubin the dwarf? I’m so confused
A nobody? The head of the New York Fed is second only to Bernanke in importance, and is much closer to the nitty-gritty of financial markets. He knows more about the details of what went down with AIG, Lehman, Bear, what mistakes were made, and what our options are going forward, than anyone else in the country.
Wall Street loves this pick (don’t hold that against him)… the market shot up hundreds of points immediately after. He’s viewed as a clean, competent, and brilliant guy. He also speaks Chinese (majored in Asian Studies) which will be very handy for welcoming our Chinese overlords.
All in all, this is by far and away the best pick Obama could have made for Treasury. Kudos. This is honestly the first piece of appointment news I’ve been really excited about. I didn’t share in the Daschle boner that Ezra Klein and other “progressives” experienced, but as a finance guy, the pick of Geithner, is really really good news (for the country! not just for Wall Street!)
This guy is like the Winston Wolf of finance - he solves problems.
Yea! Finally, some hawt ass we can relieve in…
Oh, something serious will come out on this guy, just wait. NO ONE is this clean and perfect!
Soon we shall hear all about his bathroom stall foot-tapping, underage paige IMs, and park bathroom sexcapades. It will all be out there for us to enjoy…
Dicksember here we come!
I was hoping M. Ward would get the nod, ’cause, why not or whatever.
He’s decent looking. Keep it sexy, Barry.
As long as he’s competent and Ashley Alexandra Dupre doesn’t recognize him, he’ll do just fine.
sanantonerose: more like back or front?
jagorev: Well said. But who is he fucking? *That’s* what matters.
Dreadful Gate: No, that’s Reich. Clinton’s Secretary of Labor.
freakishlystrong:
Don’t forget the expansive collection of WH belly-button lint…
I was hoping for Roubini. He already got a cool nickname, and his interior decoration is more exciting than anything in this guy’s resume.
jagorev: Totally agree with you. I exclaimed “YES!” at my desk when the breaking news thing with this shot across my screen. I’ve been dreading what seemed like an inevitable Summers pick, and having to trudge through his caveman-era quotes about women in science. Thank god. I think Obama is assembling a fucking STELLAR cabinet, honestly, I can’t think of any mis-steps, which is pretty amazing.
hopebong: You don’t know that! Geithner could have moulded plaster vaginas on his wall! Give the man a chance.
sanantonerose:
He has a serious case of rapidly receding hairline. It looks like a full-on orderly retreat. I bet in profile it looks like the Ardennes during the Battle of the Bulge.
Cocktober and Blowvember are going to be just like all the other months now, aren’t they?
Anybody whose name is Tim gets called Timmy. Them’s the rules.
jagorev: Who attended Regent University? All the greats went there. Is anyone else disturbed by what appears to be a pattern of competence emerging in these picks?
I thought Obama was clean… bright and articulate too.
Also, Michael Jackson converted to Islam. It was in The Sun.
Can he start tomorrow?
jagorev: That’s all well and good, but is he worth blingeeing?!?!?!????
problemwithcaring: this is going to be the best looking Administration ever
Let’s hope the gigantic forehead portends big ideas on how to get us outa the shit.
Markets were trading flat all day, closed up 500 after the Geithner news. Hooray!
Doglessliberal: Yea, here’s hoping, because Hillz and the guy from Love Boat don’t do it for me.
I blame Obama’s Lincoln fixation… Geithner’s cylindrical head is just yearning for the embrace of a stovepipe hat.
problemwithcaring: ah, true, if Hillz gets the job. Not much overwhelming pulchritude there.
NoWireHangers: I’m starting to think Barry is picking his staff, subconsciously or otherwise, according to how pretty they will all look together on annual White House staff Christmas cards. Like he’s arranging a United Colors of Benetton shoot or something.
Coulda told ya this 3 weeks ago. Geithner has been acting all secretarial for months.
jagorev: Complete agreement.
Not sure how much the Secretary of the Treasury can do given the runaway train/falling safe/imploding slum model that is the American economy but Geithner is still the best possible pick. Should breeze through confirmation and will have a staff of smart people ready to go. There was some speculation that he was actually more valuable at the NY Fed since he is the only person on the policy level that understands the details of the bailout but this is the right spot for the right guy.
qwerty42: Yes, the plan is to put Wonkette, the Daily Show, Keith O, and Rachael Maddow out of business by February by giving them NOTHING to feed on.
To see this plan to fruition, Sarah Palin will meet with some sort of accident in December right after she pardons the Christmas ham. You may not be able to put lipstick on a pig, but you sure can slop on the barbecue sauce!
Wake me up when there’s gay secks.
Eraserhead? http://www.ica.org.uk/thumbnail.php?max=408&id=1054
jagorev: you say he is ‘clean’ but is he also articulate? I need to understand Barry’s judgement here.
He looks like Josh Lyman so that’s a plus? This is all the input i have.
jagorev, facehead: This is the best I could do:
http://blingee.com/blingee/view/76598014-Myspace-Glitter-Graphics
Well, if he actually *wants* to be T-Sec he obviously has a masochism fetish. PLZ SEND MOAR ANGRY MOBS.
gurukalehuru: TIMMMAAAHHH!
God, how lame do you think it makes Paulson feel that the market has such a boner for his replacement?
azw88: This is actually pretty worrying news. The comedy industry is going to need a bailout now that governance will no longer be in the hands of sleazy Jesus clowns.
azw88: who said he is clean - he grew up in some terrorist infested foreign country – just like our new muslin president.
weird. If the wire services sniff the unprecedented, that Wonkette likes this pick, it could lead to another +1000 bump in the Dow, an outbreak of peace in heaven, the cows coming home from pasture, &C and so forth.
OK, I’d hit it
freakishlystrong: We sold the yo-yo at the beginning of October, and the bellybutton lint was knitted into a hat last week.
LUV the Money-Head blingee…
In other news, Geithner is going to get so much action in the bars tonight. “Oh, what’s that, you run a bank? Yeah, the FUCKING MERE MENTION OF MY NAME sent the market up 500 points today.”
jagorev: oh, don’t worry, we will always have drunk driving Congressmen with love children, Governors with 4-Diamond whores, and Evangelical preachers found dead wearing wetsuits. The material is out there.
azw88: it really, really won’t be the same. Even Letterman prefaces his Great Moments in Presidential Speeches with “gotta bet this done while we still can”.
With the sudden infusion of competence I see a serious threat to all the beloved institutions you name. I thought our hobo future would wipe them out, but this looks to be the backup plan. Geeze, then we won’t have something to do other than work.
He’s good looking. And that’s the part that matters most.
jagorev: folks, we need to act now and act fast. Contribute to the Palin’012 fund! Keep this moran in the news as much as possible. You owe it to Sara, Ken, et al. They have mouths to feed!
Good with money, if you know what I mean.
“According to some profiles, Geithner, who will now have to quickly shed his preference for shunning the spotlight, he both fly-fishes and surfs.”
http://voices.washingtonpost.com/economy-watch/?hpid=topnews
Well, that is important information to know about your Treasury Secretary for sure.
Anyone visited lolfed yet?
http://lolfed.com/category/bailout/
Good lord, you guys need to get out more. He looks like that goober in Ghostbusters (1,2,3?) who had the crush on Sigourney Weaver & was possessed by the evil overlord. If your standards are this low when you’re sober, I fear what you wake up next to after an all night drinking binge. Standards people, dammit!
What are you people worring about? Just yesterday Miss Alaska gave us Thanksgiving present.
She just keeps giving all kinds of entertainment - from slapstick to Guignol
Why does Self-Deprecating Fed have a header with no reply on it? And why does s/he seem to be in the know about what “everyone has known for 3 weeks.”
Is there some kind of scary FBI person monitoring wonkette? Does being a loser make me a security threat to anyone but me and my family?
If SDF isn’t a CIA mole, then why would he be hanging out here?
Doo-doo-doo-doo-doo (Twilight Zone music.)
Yay! Geithner is the most competent Jew-fellow to get us out of this Jew-engineered mess!
Texan Bulldoggette: You mean Vigo?
Dude was one of the few who saw this mess coming and nobody believed him.
Gonna make everyone who tries to shake Barry for some dough very uncomfortable.
“I was right and you weren’t, BEEYATCH!”
InKnockYouUs: I laughed at lolfed, which means I am some kinda geek. That is, until I encounted the article describing Spam as a booming industry in these hard times. Now I has a sad. Thanks, Hormel!
If the Interior speculations are correct, they won’t all be pretty.
Dave J.: I bet he can write the Chinese alphabet with his tongue.
TGY: Smuckers stock and profits are way up, too. PB&J and Spam for everyone!
PerhapsSo: There is a slight oversupply of do-able guys in the cabinet right now, and a real short of do-able chicks. For all the hetero male Obamatards, I’m still holding out hope that we’ll Stephanie Herseth Sandlin get a position (any position will do, if you know what I mean).
ManchuCandidate: Sweet!
I Love New York
New York is where Nathan Detroit had the oldest established permanent floating crap game.
A nobody is good. If the markets are run by clowns, Clown Master Wavy Gravy would approve of this choice:
Nobody for Treasury!
More good news for the economy: Austen Goolsbee will (probably) be the head of the CEA, and Larry Summers will serve as some kind of senior advisor in the White House.
For more on Geithner, see this article (from Feb 2007):
Calm Before the Storm (NYT)
PerhapsSo: Unless its my former governor, John Kitzhaber of Oregon. That dude is straight out of “Tombstone.” He’s awesome. On the right in this pic.
Even Larry Kudlow (enormous douchebag that he is) likes him! Seriously, this guy has, like, no enemies.
Just realized that Lex Luthor won’t be around anymore.
Audios Hank, don’t let the door hit your Goldman Sach on the way out.
No shit, ANYBUHDEE but Summers! He gives answers as long as Palin’s, but his are boringly linear and on topic – a dull, dull topic. He can be Senior Advisor on STFU instead.
Definitely merits a month on the White House pinup calender.
He majored in Asian Studies? There’s hope for humanities majors!!1!111
“The fact that the banks are stronger and risk is spread more broadly should make the system more stable,” Mr. Geithner said. “We can’t know that with certainty though. We’ll have a test of that when things next threaten to fall apart.”
Vewol Mevemont: ManchuCandidate:
1. Timmeh has neither an investment banking nor a Wall Street background.
2. His education is in international affairs.
3. While at Treasury, he was Larry Summers’ buttboy.
4. He’s a free-marketer.
5. Timmeh’s mentor Summer’s contributed to the financial mess we are in: http://www.truthdig.com/report/item/20081118_change_we_can_bank_on/?ln
6. He support’s that fuck-up Paulson.
Meet the new boss, just like the old boss.
InKnockYouUs: Bingo.
jagorev: If Kudlow likes TG, that should tell you quite a bit.
BTW: A you sticking to your undies yet?
I don’t trust anyone to hold the Treasury job if they don’t believe women are incapable of performing mathematics and science. Women, with all their bad maths and curves caused this crisis! Does Geithner see it?
http://thesebastards.blogspot.com/
S.Luggo: So you’d nominate someone with an investment banking/Wall Street background, who has never worked at Treasury, is opposed to free markets, and had no involvement in the current mess whatsoever? So who does that leave, nobody? Yeah, Treasury Secretary Nobody has a nice ring to it.
Really, if you’re opposed to Geithner, who would you nominate? Of all the people who have the knowledge and background to grapple with the current crisis (a very limited set of people indeed), he is the best pick. He’s not a prophet, but he did see aspects of this current mess coming way before other people. He’s worked in the system long enough to know it inside out, but he hasn’t been captured or corrupted by it - he won’t have an assload of Goldman stock sitting in a blind trust somewhere while he treats the Treasury secretary as a paid vacation from his “real job” (cf: every Treasury Secretary for the last 15 years). This is his real job, he’s worked at Treasury and the Fed his whole life, and he is intellectually committed to doing the job well.
I don’t get the ideological opposition - of course he’s a free-marketer - so is the United States! Or did you buy the McCain line about how Obama was going to bring Socialism? Jeez.
He speaks Chinese? Perfect…. BTW, jagorev: there ain’t gonna be no doable gals in the cabinet… Michelle sez so….
Barack Obama goes for some dude named Tim Geithner who appears to be of normal stature and possessed of no serious personality defects.
Perhaps, but it’s the normal looking ones that you have to watch out for.
i know they have the application thingy on the change.gov site for a White House job, but where do i sign up for the Obama Admin gang bang? Things are getting HOT-N-Hure
S.Luggo: What jagorev said. If you want a cultural revolution-type destruction of the existing social/economic structure, you ought to be dissapointed. If you prefer economic pragmatism, Geithner and Goolesby are top notch. Yes, Larry Kudlow is in most respects a prick, but he doesn’t want to see our economy tank any more than I (we?) do.
Don’t forget he also passed miscellaneous application question No. 59 out of 63, asking potential appointees about gun ownership. You know, in case one of Obama’s cabinet members decides to shoot someone in the face…
http://democralypsenow.blogspot.com/2008/11/nra-up-in-arms-over-obamas-desire-to.html
Vewol Mevemont: I’d also add that if you thought voting for Obama was a vote for the overturning of our existing social/economic structure, you were, um, delusional (or at least not listening very closely). Yes, he promised “Change”, but the Change he was promising was a move from wingnuttery and ignorance towards competence and pragmatism, and so far that’s what we’ve gotten in his appointments.
And he has already saved the economy without even promising 700 Billion to anybody!
Congratulations, Henry Paulson! Today we learned your mere presence causes negative 494 Dow Jones points! Your ritual seppuku can get us back to 9000!
Doglessliberal: It’s going to be like real-life Watchmen.
AnglRdr: We’ll always have Fuckruary.
We paultards are protesting the Fed tomorrow. We were going to print out and distribute leaflets to end the fed. Ron Paul will be speaking at the Houston Fed tomorrow at 12:30. This a cordial invitation to the wonkettes to come by and help out.
Tim Geithner is at home now practicing his signature. Will he sign our money, “Timothy Geithner”?
facehead: Surprising and funny.
According to the WSJ biog, the dementia raddled Hall of Fame pitcher and occasionally coherent Senator of Kentucky may be one of his main antagonists during confirmation. Since Bunning can barely feed himself anymore and gets shot down by Robert Byrd, it should be fun to watch.
http://www.harvarddems.com/node/3696
And if the new Sec. of the (lack of) Treasury wants to pick up some spare change for the now-in-negative-numbers federal budget, he can rent out billboard space on his forehead.
Vewol Mevemont: Vewol Mevemont: “S.Luggo: What jagorev said.” Me, too.
jagorev:
1. Gov. Corzine (but he turned the job down; yet he could have been persuaded had he been not so ashamed of his many NJ Turnpike rest stop and speeding violations).
2. Volcker (if he could remember to take his Aricept).
3. Sheila Blair, FDIC Chairman. (But she’s a Repug and a broad. So much for the “reaching across the aisle” crappola.)
4. Nouriel Roubini. (Predicted the credit crunch due to credit default swaps, sub-prime mortgage derivatives and CBOs. But has Iranian roots. Too bad, mister smart guy college professor, you. Show us your Green Card.)
5. Alexander Hamilton. (Alas, prick doesn‘t respond to my Tweets. Like Barry, one more snooty intellectual, friggin’ Columbia snob.)
6. Hugo Chavez. (Would be an interesting choice if he could speak English instead of just Mexican.)
Anyone but another Democratic Leadership Council clintonian. As often said, Bill Clinton is the best president that de-reg free-market Republicans ever had.
Kisses.
S.Luggo:
1. Another Goldman Sachs CEO? Now that’s change we can believe in.
2. Yes, Volcker would be great, but he’s also very old, and probably not up to the stress of the job right now.
3. I hardly think the FDIC has distinguished itself more than the New York Fed in managing this crisis so far. Yes, she’s been all right, but has been a bit player compared to Geithner’s central role in crisis management.
4. Roubini is a nut and a weirdo. He probably wouldn’t even get confirmed by the Senate. Even if he were confirmed, we don’t need a self-aggrandizing blusterer in charge of Treasury. Note how Geithner has the ability to work with others and get things done. He’s been involved in solving problems, and isn’t just blustering on his blog.
5. Yes, Alexander Hamilton is pretty awesome.
6. This I could get behind.
And you are utterly wrong that Geithner is a “DLC” Clintonian. He’s basically apolitical. Read his papers, his speeches on how to handle the risks of derivatives and leverage, you won’t be able to suss out his political opinions from them. Closest thing to a non-partisan Treasury Secretary you could get. He’s basically a technocrat, and is respected by everyone remotely connected to the financial markets, left, right, or center. He’s exactly the change we need right now.
DustBowlBlues:
So, despite your moniker, you favor a free-marketer for Sec. of Treasury who favors minimal government regulation and no socio-economic intervention?
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dust_Bowl#Government_response
Go back into your time machine and vote for McGrumpy.
Geithner, More of the Same: http://www.openmarket.org/2008/11/21/geithner-choice-is-more-of-the-same-was-paulsons-bailout-cohort/
And here I had so feared we might be faced with the appointment of that dirty-handed, woman-deprecating, empirical-reality-hating, Lithuanian-butchering deregulating market-fundamentalist Larry Summers. But is ok! Instead we get his bumboy, who is not on record as hating women at all! And Wall St. loves bumboy because, well, see above.
Hip hip.
S.Luggo: Good job proving that ideologues on the left are just as unrealistic and blinded by dogma as their counterparts on the right.
“ideologues on the left”
Ooo, that hurts so much, Pegster.
gurukalehuru: We would never admit that Reich is short too. That would be rude.
Stork market went up because Geithner promised that he bring a Rottweiler puppy to Treasury and that it will bite the trucknutz off the evil-doers, including Hank Paulson.
So I guess Jack Kevorkian wasn’t available so he went with this guy . . .
Since nobody’s ever heard of him, I guess that means he has been cast in a pretty big part in “The Watchmen”.
He looks like a barrel of fun.
Plus, the shirt and tie are hideous.