That “heckuva job, Timmy” moment from last week may not last. The mood on Capitol Hill has darkened considerably since Tim Geithner admitted that he pushed Chris Dodd into enabling the AIG bonuses that set Democrats to screeching last week. Senator Richard Shelby (R-AL) told Fox News that Geithner needs “a 180-degree turn” soon, if Barack Obama wants him to stick around:
Citing Treasury’s role in recommending the removal of a provision to block bonus payouts by TARP recipients, Shelby said “there’s a lot of questions to be asked. I’m not feeling real good about Treasury’s role or the specific role of Tim Geithner at the moment.”
Shelby, who voted to confirm Geithner, said “if he keeps going down this road, I think that he won’t last long. I think he’s probably on shaky grounds now, at least with the Congress and a lot of the American people.”
Shelby added “he’s going to have to do a 180 degree turnaround I believe to be a successful secretary.”
The rollout of Geithner’s bag-of-slogans plan won’t help build confidence. When the President has to keep saying that he has complete confidence in a Cabinet official, that’s not exactly a confidence-builder, either.
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