Michael Wolff seems to be echoing Rush Limbaugh on this post about Obama being a weak Yuppie and Yuppie Tim Geithner being the shortest-tenured Treasury Sec'y since someone long ago. He seems gleeful that Obama might fail. I share Wolff's view that Geithner is a lightweight. But this is not helpful.
Speaking of which, I heard Brian Lehrer interviewing Eliot Spitzer on WNYC yesterday. That's a guy who knows what's going on on Wall Street and is not a gameplayer, could actually get his mind around these problems. A pity that our vice laws have deprived us of his technical leadership, now that we need it. Oh and Gov. David Paterson--another lightweight, and a gift of our traditional sexual mores.
Paul Craig Roberts wrote today that Spitzer was set up:
"Eliot Spitzer, the former New York Governor who was set-up in a sex scandal to prevent him investigating Wall Street’s financial gangsterism, pointed out on March 17 that the real scandal is the billions of taxpayer dollars paid to the counter-parties of AIG’s financial deals. These payments, Spitzer writes, are "a way to hide an enormous second round of cash to the same group that had received TARP money already."
Was the Bailout Itself a Scam?
A couple more articles on the Spitzer saga:
Lawyer questions whether Spitzer was set up, noting political prosecutions
The Spitzer Sex Sting: A Few More Questions
Spitzer would be an ideal special prosecutor for everything having to do with the Wall Street scams.
I don't think he would need Senate confirmation for such an appointment, would he?
I wouldn't have expected Paul Craig Roberts to sympathize with a thug prosecutor like Spitzer.
We should not pity Mr. Spitzer's unfortunate circumstance. Instead, we should simply be furious with the ex-governor for depriving us of his services. Unlike Clinton's actions, Spitzer's were illegal, and he rightly resigned. i do believe that after a period of penance-paying, Spitzer ought to be rehabilitated enough that we should be able to benefit as a society from his talent, and I agree that that may not happen. Certainly, the Obama administration, exquisitely sensitive to appearances as it is, is unlikely to tap his abilities. Perhaps Paterson himself, likely on his way out, could deign to move to re-employ Mr. Spitzer to help attack Wall Street excess again at the New York state-level. It seems that is a function to which Mr. Spitzer was well-suited, and perhaps should have sought to be satisfied with it, important as it was. One wonders whether, had that role had the profile and level of public support when he was considering his run for governor that it surely would now, whether such attractions might have been enough to quell somewhat his ambition for higher office. One rather doubts it. In fact, one rather suspects quite the reverse.