Should We Be Critical of the Geithner About-Face?

Fight disinformation: Sign up for the free Mother Jones Daily newsletter and follow the news that matters.


A lot of early morning chatter on the internets is focusing on this WaPo story, which suggests that Treasury Secretary Tim Geithner’s rollout of the Wall Street bailout version 2.0 was “hobbled” by a last minute change of plans. “According to several sources involved in the deliberations, Geithner
had come to the conclusion that the strategies he and his team had
spent weeks working on were too expensive, too complex and too risky
for taxpayers,” the article says. “They needed an alternative and found it in a
previously considered initiative to pair private investments and public
loans to try to buy the risky assets and take them off the books of
banks.”

This news isn’t being received kindly. TPM‘s top headline: “How Geithner’s Bailout Rollout Flopped.” Mike Tomasky echoes the Post and says that Geithner’s effort was “hobbled.” Conservative blog Red State is calling the situation a “picture of dysfunction.”

And yet, why? I agree that Geithner should have ignored his arbitrary deadline in order to put more meat on the bones of his plan. I agree that it is ridiculous that the administration gave Geithner no staff to work with. But shouldn’t we applaud the fact that Geithner did not stubbornly stick to a plan that he could see was not working, despite the fact that he had spent weeks working on it? Wasn’t it characteristic of the Bush Administration to never admit mistakes and to obstinately stick with policies that were obvious failures? Doesn’t that explain years 2003-2006 of the Iraq War and Donald Rumsfeld’s tenure as Secretary of Defense?

Geithner saw that he had a flawed plan. Instead of saying, “It’s too late to change course” or “We put too much work in to switch things now,” he scrapped what he had and went with something better. I say we give him credit for that.

THE FACTS SPEAK FOR THEMSELVES.

At least we hope they will, because that’s our approach to raising the $350,000 in online donations we need right now—during our high-stakes December fundraising push.

It’s the most important month of the year for our fundraising, with upward of 15 percent of our annual online total coming in during the final week—and there’s a lot to say about why Mother Jones’ journalism, and thus hitting that big number, matters tremendously right now.

But you told us fundraising is annoying—with the gimmicks, overwrought tone, manipulative language, and sheer volume of urgent URGENT URGENT!!! content we’re all bombarded with. It sure can be.

So we’re going to try making this as un-annoying as possible. In “Let the Facts Speak for Themselves” we give it our best shot, answering three questions that most any fundraising should try to speak to: Why us, why now, why does it matter?

The upshot? Mother Jones does journalism you don’t find elsewhere: in-depth, time-intensive, ahead-of-the-curve reporting on underreported beats. We operate on razor-thin margins in an unfathomably hard news business, and can’t afford to come up short on these online goals. And given everything, reporting like ours is vital right now.

If you can afford to part with a few bucks, please support the reporting you get from Mother Jones with a much-needed year-end donation. And please do it now, while you’re thinking about it—with fewer people paying attention to the news like you are, we need everyone with us to get there.

payment methods

THE FACTS SPEAK FOR THEMSELVES.

At least we hope they will, because that’s our approach to raising the $350,000 in online donations we need right now—during our high-stakes December fundraising push.

It’s the most important month of the year for our fundraising, with upward of 15 percent of our annual online total coming in during the final week—and there’s a lot to say about why Mother Jones’ journalism, and thus hitting that big number, matters tremendously right now.

But you told us fundraising is annoying—with the gimmicks, overwrought tone, manipulative language, and sheer volume of urgent URGENT URGENT!!! content we’re all bombarded with. It sure can be.

So we’re going to try making this as un-annoying as possible. In “Let the Facts Speak for Themselves” we give it our best shot, answering three questions that most any fundraising should try to speak to: Why us, why now, why does it matter?

The upshot? Mother Jones does journalism you don’t find elsewhere: in-depth, time-intensive, ahead-of-the-curve reporting on underreported beats. We operate on razor-thin margins in an unfathomably hard news business, and can’t afford to come up short on these online goals. And given everything, reporting like ours is vital right now.

If you can afford to part with a few bucks, please support the reporting you get from Mother Jones with a much-needed year-end donation. And please do it now, while you’re thinking about it—with fewer people paying attention to the news like you are, we need everyone with us to get there.

payment methods

We Recommend

Latest

Sign up for our free newsletter

Subscribe to the Mother Jones Daily to have our top stories delivered directly to your inbox.

Get our award-winning magazine

Save big on a full year of investigations, ideas, and insights.

Subscribe

Support our journalism

Help Mother Jones' reporters dig deep with a tax-deductible donation.

Donate