For Shame

I’d say he’s smooth enough. Sitting forward with elbows on his knees, speaking in a conversational manner (unlike Jr. who always spoke like an 8-year old reading the unfamiliar lines his handlers gave him).
As to sharper…I’d like to see some FDR-style talk, like:
We had to struggle with the old enemies of peace–business and financial monopoly, speculation, reckless banking, class antagonism, sectionalism, war profiteering…
They are unanimous in their hate for me–and I welcome their hatred.
I should like to have it said of my first Administration that in it the forces of selfishness and of lust for power met their match. I should like to have it said of my second Administration that in it these forces met their master.

Timothy Geithner looks a little chagrined, like the kid who just got yelled at behind the Principal’s closed door.
He ought to be — here’s the relevant bits of his bio at the Federal Reserve Bank of New York:

• Ninth president and chief executive officer of the Federal Reserve Bank of New York on November 17, 2003
• Vice chairman and a permanent member of the Federal Open Market Committee, the group responsible for formulating the nation’s monetary policy
• 75th Secretary of the Treasury and the U.S. Senate confirmed him to the position on January 26, 2009
• Joined the Department of Treasury in 1988
• Worked in three administrations for five Secretaries of the Treasury
• Under Secretary of the Treasury for International Affairs from 1999 to 2001
• Director of the Policy Development and Review Department at the International Monetary Fund from 2001 until 2003
• Worked for Kissinger Associates, Inc.
• Graduated from Dartmouth College with a bachelor’s degree in government and Asian studies
• Graduated from the Johns Hopkins School of Advanced International Studies with a master’s in International Economics and East Asian Studies
• Studied Japanese and Chinese
• Lived in East Africa, India, Thailand, China, and Japan
• Chairman of the G-10’s Committee on Payment and Settlement Systems of the Bank for International Settlements
• Member of the Council on Foreign Relations and the Group of Thirty

With the best education that money could buy, international travel, over 20 years of on-the-job experience, and an impressive bipartisan Rolodex, the real shame is that Mr. Geithner and his colleagues — who were and are responsible for the sound construction of America’s monetary system — failed to see (not to mention avoid) the current worldwide economic crisis.
This strains credulity: it was a financial 9-10 all over again, and all of the King’s smart guys didn’t make any difference. What else have they missed? If Obama insists upon retaining foxes to guard the henhouse, at least he could pick ovivores with a little better foresight.
Compared to the trillions of ex nihilo TARP and Stimulus dollars about to be handed out, the bankers’ bailouts are trivial. Enron’s duplicity was a similar cookie jar caper, but at least Bush Administration prosecutors caught and convicted their executives.
Is that an option today, or will today’s bad boy bankers feel so ashamed of themselves after Obama’s scolding that they’ll voluntarily return their ill-gotten gains?

…the bankers’ bonuses are trivial…

I also think that Geithner looks like a scolded child in this picture…so to whom is obama talking, the other kids Geithner was partying with….

The President’s wedding ring and wristwatch jump out at me.

I think Geithner has more of a cynical than chagrined look.

It is starting to look like a dictate of a sharp one, the records don’t matter. Why put in charge crooks? Did FDR do that?

Agree with robertdsc, that is one impressive looking watch. The question is what functions, other than keeping time, are built in… Obama after all is a technophile, that watch must have multiple functions!

According to Barack Obama’s Watches (scroll about halfway down for details and images), it was a 46th birthday gift to then-candidate Obama from his Secret Service detail:

The Secret Service chronograph given to Senator Obama by the Secret Service agents is a private label watch available only in the Secret Service employees’ store. The watch is manufactured for the Secret Service store by Jorg Gray, and appears in the Jorg Gray online catalog as the JGC6500 Chronograph. The chronograph is made in China, with a Japanese movement.

Rumor has it that the watch also plays an appropriate security reminder:

Every breath you take
Every move you make
Every bond you break
Every step you take
Ill be watching you
Every single day
Every word you say
Every game you play
Every night you stay
Ill be watching you
Oh, cant you see
You belong to me
How my poor heart aches
With every step you take
Every move you make
Every vow you break
Every smile you fake
Every claim you stake
I’ll be watching you

Apparently, Obama’s scolding didn’t end with domestic Wall Street investment bankers.

Treasury Secretary Geithner — reading from a prepared administration statement during his Senate Finance Committee confirmation hearing — also sent a message Far Eastward, but the recipients didn’t give too much currency to it.

From the February 1, 2009 Times Online, Spat with China raises fears of a trade war:

The new American Treasury secretary uses a Senate hearing room to accuse the Chinese of manipulating their currency, and the Chinese premier uses the Davos gathering of the moguls to accuse America of wrecking the world financial system. Not an auspicious beginning for Sino-American relations in the new era of the great believer in softly, softly diplomacy, Barack Obama.

Tim Geithner has settled into his new job at the Treasury. It no longer matters that Geithner was the Fed’s man on Wall Street while the excesses and chicanery reached their peak. Or that he failed to pay his income taxes despite routine notifications from his former employer, the International Monetary Fund. Or that it was Geithner, along with his predecessor, Hank Paulson, who decided to let Lehman Brothers go under, bringing the financial system to the verge of collapse. That’s all behind him.

What might be ahead is a trade war, triggered by Geithner when he told the Senate during his confirmation hearings that he believes China is “manipulating” its currency to maintain it at a low value so as to stimulate its exports. “Manipulate” is the word that upsets the Chinese, and imports are the things that most upset the trade unions and congressional Democrats who see them as destroying jobs in America – never mind the benefits to consumers.

When China holds over $680,000,000,000 worth of U.S. Treasury notes, it is perhaps undiplomatic (and a little premature) to publicly accuse our largest foreign lender of manipulative financial dealings.

it’s a shame alright. i’m not sure i buy what (i guess) passes for outrage.
didn’t they see this coming? congress had a chance to legislatively spell out beforehand that none of the bail out money should be used for bonuses. an ounce of prevention… is worth billions?