The talking heads are in a froth about the Obama economic plan and already calling for Geitner's resignation. What is missing, though, is the simple element of reality: Obama's only been president for just over two months, and the crisis was years in the making. That said, I'm blown away by how quickly and decisively our president and his team are working to fix this mess.
The astonishing thing about President Obama (well, astonishing unless one watched him as a candidate!) is how quickly he actually got to work and got stuff done, particularly with the economy. While not ignoring the other key issues and hard decisions (and in the midst of various nomination SNAFUs), the Obama administration has passed a detailed stimulus package (not just "here's your refund check, citizens"), crafted an ambitious budget, and worked to address not only the first-tranche TARP mess but the foreclosure crisis as well. Through it all, President Obama has projected energy, confidence and intelligence.
Unlike the accusation from the right, though, those of us who are intelligent progressives don't see Obama as a "savior," nor do we expect everything he does to work. We darn well shouldn't expect it to work instantly, which is essentially what all the naysayers are complaining about, particularly when it comes to the lending crisis. Especially given that the lending crisis was essentially manufactured by the banking industry (as in "Give Us Ransom or this Economy Dies!"), it's not really surprising that the banking industry is resisting efforts to make it better without further inflows of capital. And yes, while Geitner is very much an insider in that banking world and may well be guilty of shortsightedness in terms of available solutions, he also clearly speaks the language of those whose behavior we need to change, so perhaps his approach will work. We don't know, we can't know, not for quite a while longer than the always-rabid talking heads are apparently willing to wait.
There is a real crisis out there, with real people trying to pay real bills after having lost real jobs, and it does require swift action to begin to fix that problem, while providing immediate short-term relief to those in need. No one can objectively fault the Obama administration for trying to do exactly that. Hopefully, while the talking heads continue to talk at each other about resignations and failures, the reasonable among us can watch as the administration's thoughtful plans, prepared and executed with all deliberate speed but not undue haste (but see Everything Done by GWB (2001-2008), for a counterexample) begin to turn this unwieldy ship that is the economy and turn it toward more productive waters. {ProfJonathan}