Tim Geithner Under the Microscope from The Washington Independent

Wall Street sure does like the thought of Tim Geithner running the Treasury Dept. next year. (The Dow surged 494 points Friday as the news leaked, and 397 yesterday as the appointment was officially announced.) But, like Sarah Palin before him, the relatively obscure Geithner — who's headed New York's Federal Reserve Bank for the past five years — was certain to get a closer examination after being named to a position of such tremendous public importance. Indeed, The New York Time's Andrew Ross Sorkin has a revealing piece today that questions just how wizardly the 47-year-old is if he couldn't foresee the financial mess coming:

Mr. Geithner also oversaw and regulated an entire industry whose decline has delivered a further blow to an already weakened American economy. Under his watch, some of the biggest institutions that were the responsibility of the New York Fed — Bear Stearns, Lehman Brothers, Merrill Lynch and most recently, Citigroup — faltered. While he was one of the first regulators to smartly articulate the potential for an impending disaster, a number of observers question whether he went far enough to stop the calamity.

rest http://washingtonindependent.com/20040/tim-geithner-under-the-microscope