Obama Treasury and State Department Confirmations

The new, Democratically controlled, government quickly moved to approve a couple of President Obama’s cabinet appointees in his first week in office.

New Treasury Secretary Timothy Geithner was grilled on his failure to pay $34,000 in personal income taxes over a four-year period. Even the Senators who voted for his confirmation agreed that it doesn’t look good for the man who will soon be in charge of the I.R.S.

I suppose timing is everything. Since the country’s economy is in the I.C.U. (or I.O.U., depending on your point of reference), Geithner managed to play his GET OUT OF JAIL FREE card and replace the incumbent incompetent, Henry Paulson, who apparently never met a banker he didn’t like.

At the very least Geithner has promised to make the banks more accountable for what they plan to do with their bailout billions. When the banks were recently questioned about where the first round of bailout money (under Paulson) went, they wouldn’t say, except to say that they weren’t going to discuss it with the Associated Press.

One hint made the news on January 22: Bank of America forced former Merrill Lynch CEO John Thain to resign under pressure after reports leaked out that Thain had rushed to pay billions of dollars in bonuses to Merrill Lynch employees in the final days before Bank of America took over the hemorrhaging brokerage with a few billion bailout bucks. Let’s hope Thain gets to explain his deplorable actions to a jury of his taxpaying peers somewhere down the road.

Meanwhile, Hillary “the Hag” Clinton was confirmed and took over as Secretary of State while dismissing any attempts to make husband Bill’s charitable foundation disclose the names and amounts donated by any foreign entities, who might be seeking to curry favor with the State Department. Let’s not forget that some of the notorious criminals pardoned in Clinton’s final days as president ended up supporting Hillary’s campaign for U.S. Senator from New York. Moreover, given Hillary and Bill’s past involvement in Whitewater and Travelgate, as well as their infamous Bed and Breakfast setup in the Lincoln Bedroom of the White House, I think we’ve taken another step backward when it comes to transparency in government.

The Associated Press has already determined that Senator Hillary stepped in at least six times to influence issues benefiting contributors to her husband’s charity. If you really think that back-scratching mentality goes away during her future in the State Department, then I’m sure she has a bridge in Brooklyn she’ll be happy to sell you at a good price. Maybe the people of New York won’t miss it.