Geithner Book Reveals Consensus, Not Vision, During Financial Crisis
And Geithner-like characters keep popping up, while appointees who are unlike the president get ousted. At the Federal Deposit Insurance Corporation, the outspoken Sheila C. Bair was replaced with the low-profile Martin J. Gruenberg. Gary S. Gensler, the tough chairman of the Commodity Futures Trading Commission, didn’t get nominated for a second term. In his place, we got a Treasury official whose cipher of a record was almost treated as a virtue by the Obama administration. The new head of the S.E.C.,Mary Jo White, has been disappointing on regulatory questions.
Favored Obama appointees seem to share certain qualities: They work within the system, they don’t like to ruffle feathers or pick fights, and they keep their profiles low. They are technocrats.
.. Mr. Geithner says he wanted to do what was right: consolidate the banking and securities regulators and plug holes in the system. But the president’s advisers seem to compete to see who can bow more quickly to what they perceive as the political realities of the moment.