Geithner: I Just Don’t Get it

Posted by on . 2 comments.

This man, it is clear, deliberately cheated on his taxes. (Or to be fair: either he deliberately cheated on his taxes, or he’s a complete moron.)

Obama continues to support Geithner, dismissing Geithner’s failure to pay taxes as an “innocent mistake”. It isn’t. Or it is an innocent mistake only in Bushworld. And we’re not in Bushworld any longer. (Or are we?)

Meanwhile, this seems to have quickly become the conventional wisdom:

President Barack Obama’s nominee for Treasury secretary, Timothy Geithner, though tarnished by disclosures of his failure to pay taxes, is likely too uniquely qualified for Congress to reject amid hopes to contain the worst economic downturn in decades.

More shades of Bushworld there: have enough people repeat a thing enough times, and the entire media and the American people will unquestioningly accept it as the truth.

I challenge anyone to actually explain what makes Geithner so uniquely qualified.

Certainly, before his tax evasion came to light, he sounded like a perfectly good choice. But uniquely qualified? There’s nobody else the Obama administration can come up with who wouldn’t seem to be an equally good choice? Surely, that doesn’t make any sense at all. So why are so many people swallowing it so cheerfully?

Comments

  1. matt says:
    January 21, 2009 at 8:19 am

    >But uniquely qualified?

    very few people not named hank paulson can say that they aided a wall street meltdown.

  2. choujin says:
    January 21, 2009 at 11:30 am

    I think it’s unfair that people are trying to make light of Geithner’s tax evasion. Why is he not being sent to prison? I mean, we’re talking about $34K over 3 years. Sure he paid it back along with the associated interest, but why should that matter. Wesley Snipes is in jail for 3 yrs for a $15K discrepancy that his CPA messed up, and he paid the money back with interest as well. Snipes at least could say that he’s a movie star and relied on someone else’s work. Geithner on the other hand, being a financial person, did his taxes himself. I find it hard to believe that “it was an honest mistake” and he didn’t avoid paying those taxes on purpose. He may be “the best person for the job” but even the best can be corrupt (cue Madoff comment). I, for one, do not think he should be confirmed for this position.