– By Warner Todd Huston
Certainly one cannot say that Markos Moulitsas, the fellow that invented DailyKos.com, is the sage of the Democratic Party specifically or the left generally, but he does have a certain following as well as a high profile among activists if not Party regulars and political bosses. So when Kos begins Twittering that Sec. of the Treasury Tim Geithner is failing, this is not a good sign for Obama’s guy.
On Sunday, March 23, Kos wrote a Twitter posting stating “Geithner is starting to look like Obama’s Rumsfeld.”
To employ a sayin: I know Donald Rumsfeld, Tim Geithner is no Donald Rumsfeld. Still, this could mark the beginning of the end of Tim Geithner as Obama’s Sec. of Treasury. His bad start when his tax cheating was revealed, compounded with his lackluster performances in press conferences, his claims that the next press conference will have all the answers at which time he tells us the same thing he’s already said, and, finally, his mishandling of the AIG bonuses incident is a veritable cornucopia of failure. For a man that is supposedly the smartest president we’ve had since Carter his choice of Geithner is not reassuring. And when even a kool aide drinker like Kos starts dissing Obama’s guy, well, who cannot suspect that the end is near?
Of course, the better comparison, at least as far as public perception is concerned, is not Donald Rumsfeld. It is, rather, Bush’s hurricane Katrina morass with one time FEMA boss Michael Brown. The media made a big deal of it when President Bush said, “You’re doing a heckuva job, Brownie” as the post Katrina mess deepened. Here we see revealed the same sort of tin-ear that Bush showed as everything spun out of control after Katrina with his blind support of Brown in Obama’s blind support of Geithner.
The disappointment in Geithner is almost palpable on the left and it seems that one of the last voices to check in against the Sec. of Treasury is Moulitsas,’ a sign of how much trouble Obama’s guy is in with those on his own side of the aisle.
So, the question is fast coming to that of wondering how much longer Obama can continue to stubbornly support Geithner? Or will Obama resort to his campaign penchant of tossing Timmy under the Obama bus? If Obama cannot even keep his own side on track in support of Geithner, this does not speak well to the Treasury boss’ future.
(Photo credit: Tim Sloan/AFP/Getty)
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Warner Todd Huston is a Chicago based freelance writer, has been writing opinion editorials and social criticism since early 2001 and is featured on many websites such as newsbusters.org, Human Events Magazine, townhall.com, New Media Journal, Men’s News Daily and the New Media Alliance among many, many others. Additionally, he has been a frequent guest on talk-radio programs to discuss his opinion editorials and current events. He has also written for several history magazines and appears in the new book “Americans on Politics, Policy and Pop Culture” which can be purchased on amazon.com. He is also the owner and operator of publiusforum.com. Feel free to contact him with any comments or questions : EMAIL Warner Todd Huston
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