We have reached the Sweet Sixteen round of the NCAA Tournament, and the Obama administration still hasn’t named any nominees for any position in the U.S. Treasury Department beyond Secretary.
Addressing the latest “will Geithner resign?” rumors, in Conde Nast Portfolio magazine, Felix Salmon writes, “Do keep a close eye on the eventual nominee for deputy Treasury secretary. My guess is that person — whoever it ends up being — has a very good chance indeed of taking over before Obama’s first term is up.”
That’s the point. If, heaven forbid, Geithner were to collapse from exhaustion, there wouldn’t be any Obama appointees left at Treasury. Obama joked to 60 Minutes, “What’s taken so long? You’ve been in office a whole 40 days and you haven’t solved the greatest financial crisis since the Great Depression.” Cute, but he’s been in office 62 days and was elected 139 days ago, almost five months.
If it were the Senate holding up qualified nominees, the legislative branch would be blamed, but there aren’t even any names coming from the White House. Finding some people to work with Geithner shouldn’t be taking this long.