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February 10, 2009

Your Turn: The Light On Tim

NYT-Geithner-Summers.jpg

This is a particularly strange image the NYT chose to insert in its lead article about Tim Geithner’s unveiling of the Administration’s banking bailout plan.

Just off the bat, it’s one of the very few images I’ve seen of Geithner looking relaxed and unselfconscious — obviously due to the candid moment. (Compared to the typical, it’s striking to see “what he really looks like.”) Then, there is the fact TG is thumbing through (and also looking away from) an edition of a black business publication with Obama on the cover. We have TG perhaps looking toward Summers. And then, there is the disembodied female hand on Summers’s back.

All that, mixed with the caption that Geithner and Summers prevailed on the rescue plan over leading Administration opposition, makes for a strange brew.

Your thoughts on the image, as well as where The Times — with all the photo options available — might have been going with this?

(click for full size)

  • http://profile.typepad.com/6p0111685906ef970c garyb50

    I agree it’s a strange composition. It’s not TG holding the magazine. It’s someone further down the row.

  • cenoxo

    Washington Post February 10, 2009 — Transcript: Geithner Announces New Financial Stability Plan.
    Times Online, February 10, 2009 — Stocks Plunge as Timothy Geithner Fudges Detail of Economic Rescue:

    Quincy Crosby, chief investment strategist at The Hartford, one of America’s biggest investment companies, said that the White House’s financial rescue plan had disappointed the financial markets with its lack of detail.
    “Markets need clarify [sic] and this was precisely the opposite,” Ms Crosby said. “The market had been hoping for more than just a general framework.”

    Not much illumination there — looks like the administration is still sitting in the dark.

  • http://sbgypsy.blogspot.com sbgypsy

    Not so much on the Pic, but I distinctly remember Obama saying, in reference to his cabinet picks, that it didn’t matter what their views were, HE was president and they would do as he wants them to do. So, either Obama is a two faced liar, or his picks think they can do their job very well without his imput. Either way it’s discouraging.

  • jtfromBC

    Its good observing a relaxed Tim, but how did he acquire a black hand ?

  • garyb50

    Evidently credibility means nothing @ BAGnews?
    Not that it matters but your post is incorrect & it has been pointed out to you & you have no response.
    What Say You?

  • http://profile.typepad.com/6p010537183553970b cenoxo

    Shedding a little more light on Tim (G), we can see that he is indeed not holding the magazine. It’s being read by a black man (A) sitting at least two chairs behind Geithner, separated by a man (B) in light-colored clothing writing on a notepad in his lap:

    Geithner is leaning slightly forward in his chair, and his right hand — perhaps in an all-too-fitting Freudian gesture — is reaching up inside his left jacket pocket to check for his wallet.
    Have you checked yours lately?