Start Cutting The Squares For The Office Pool On Geithner Exit?

If there is such a trophy, or award, the headline-of-the-day goes to Will Bunch, over on his Attytood blog;

What's that, Lassie? (Woof, woof!!) Timmy Geithner's in the well?!!

There's a lot of ways to measure a good-to-great president. We tend to focus on both their policies and their skill in communicating with the American people, but another key task is the ability to admit mistakes, especially when it was a doozy. Remember JFK and the Bay of Pigs early in his presidency?

And Timothy Geithner as President Obama's Treasury Secretary is looking like another one of these.

The New York Times has a comparable, but more reserved story today, as well;

Geithner, With Few Aides, Is Scrambling

Rarely have so few people had so little time to prop up so many pillars of the economy as those in the Treasury Department under Timothy F. Geithner.

In the six weeks since Mr. Geithner took over as Treasury secretary, he and a skeleton crew of unofficial senior advisers have been racing to make decisions that will shape the future of the banking, insurance, housing and automobile industries. 

But even as he maintains a frenetic pace — unveiling plans, testifying before Congress and negotiating new bailouts with the likes of Citigroup, General Motors and the American International Group — there are signs that events are getting ahead of him.

And, here's some recent headlines on our new Secretary of the Treasury.

Former Australian Prime Minister Savages Geithner's Performance in the Asian Crisis

Geithner goes for a laundry list, not a dramatic gesture

Geithner Backs The Elites

Lawmakers laughed at Geithner plan

Geithner Bank Bailout Plan: Fiasco

Add to this, one big-byline blogger has directly called for Geithner to go;

Henry Blodget - Time To Fire Tim Geithner

We don't mean to sound impatient, but we've seen enough. The country is in the middle of the worst financial crisis in 75 years, and the second-most-important person in charge clearly isn't the right man for the job.

When both engines on US Air Flight 1549 quit after takeoff, Capt. Sullenberger did not cling stubbornly to his preconceived view of the situation. He did not float endless versions of the same bad plan to air traffic controllers to see what they thought of them. He did not spend months preparing for a moment just like this only to be seized by indecision when it arrived.

Instead, he just took the controls and landed the plane in the Hudson.

[Snip]

We don't mean to sound impatient, but we've seen enough. The country is in the middle of the worst financial crisis in 75 years, and the second-most-important person in charge clearly isn't the right man for the job.

When both engines on US Air Flight 1549 quit after takeoff, Capt. Sullenberger did not cling stubbornly to his preconceived view of the situation. He did not float endless versions of the same bad plan to air traffic controllers to see what they thought of them. He did not spend months preparing for a moment just like this only to be seized by indecision when it arrived.

Instead, he just took the controls and landed the plane in the Hudson.

After detailing Geithner's "Timmy in the Well" exploits, Blodget continues;

With a few years of seasoning in a normal environment, Tim Geithner might turn out to be a fine Treasury Secretary. But this isn't a normal environment, and we don't have a few years.

The engines of the US economy just quit. We're losing altitude rapidly. And the co-pilot flying the plane clearly doesn't know what to do.

So it's time for the captain to take over again, before Geithner takes him and the rest of us down with him.

Megan McArdle comes, somewhat tepidly, to Geithner's defense ("Should Geithner go?"), however, we probably can predict, there will be more-and-more of these type of posts, articles and headlines coming in the days ahead.

Not to mention what the PartyofNoican will throw out there.

But, hey, it's March, and that means "March Madness", the time of year where anything can happen.

Anyone can win, or anyone can lose.

Hang in there Timmy, maybe you do have a buzzer-beater in you.