Geithner's Unsurprising Decision To Stay At Treasury

Is anyone really surprised that tax-cheat and Treasury Secretary Tim Geithner has chosen to remain at Treasury for the rest of Wonderboy's term?

Friday's S&P downgrade of US credit from AAA to AA+ is probably not the note on which Geithner wants to end his Treasury career. To leave now would provide an air of, well, resignation. An admission of defeat.

Then there's the little matter of his replacement.

Sure, pundits were favoring Jamie Dimon to be Geithner's replacement. But, with Wonderboy's recent bumbling of the debt limit talks, and falling poll numbers with just a year and change to go before the 2012 election, does Dimon want to trade a fairly safe career as Chase CEO for as long as he wants for what could well be a one-year, highly-politicized tour at Treasury? Wouldn't the same be true for anyone in the financial community who is unsullied by the recent crisis, but smart enough to read the Tea (Party) leaves?

Face it, whoever follows Geithner, who was never more than a financial plumber by experience, will only be even more of a hack than he was. It's damage control time at Treasury with what will be, after confirmation of Geithner's replacement, just about 12 months to go before the election. And his/her prospects for a longer career than one year are highly in doubt.

So that left the administration with the possibility of an Undersecretary filling in for Geithner as it desperately tried to find someone respectable, or at least adequate, and potentially didn't succeed.

Can you imagine the US going without a Treasury Secretary for several months right after the nation's first credit downgrade?

My guess is that it was made clear to Geithner that his life after Treasury would be as nightmarish as Wonderboy and his allies could make it, should he unwisely desert the ship of state in its hour of need.