Circular Firing Squad! Fire! Aim! Ready!

While Al Giordano has a point going after Double G, Firedoglake's Jane Hamsher, and OpenLeft's David Sirota for the "Clearly Republicans are going after Chris Dodd with this Treasury told him to do it crap!" stories (disproved conclusively yesterday when Timmy declared "We told Chris Dodd to do it"), Al does offer this odd defense of Geithner:(empahsis mine)

The presumption that it matters that much who is Treasury Secretary – given that the President meets daily with that person and the rest of the economic team as the first order of business every single morning – is pretty silly, too. (I’ve been the first to admit that whereas I thought Hillary Clinton would be a terrible choice for Secretary of State, she’s actually turned out to be very good at it, because like the rest of the cabinet she’s faithfully executing Obama’s openly stated agenda from the campaign even on cases like the Cuba embargo and direct diplomacy with US-shunned nations that she had vociferously opposed just last year).

Any different Treasury Secretary would be following the exact same instructions as the current one. The suggestion that President Obama is somehow hands off on the economic recovery or the kind of weak mind subject to Svengali-like hypnotism by his cabinet members is the real "magical thinking" going on here. More "magical thinking" (they like that term over there in the Poutrage Club, so let's make them eat it) comes in their delusional ignorance of what the consequences would be for the economic recovery and the 2010 midterm Congressional elections if the Republicans in the US Senate were to be given a second shot at derailing a Treasury nominee. They clearly haven't thought it through, or, if they have, then why can't they just admit they secretly hope, like Limbaugh, for failure?

Oh I've thought it through, Al. Volker, Krugman, Roubini, would make better Treasury guys than Timmy, but the reality is this: If it doesn't really matter who Obama has at Treasury because Obama is running the economy right now, then Obama's not doing a very good job on running the economy right now. The stimulus was nowhere near enough, we're still bailing out the same banks using the Paulson playbook, and now we're still kicking around the same "Bad Bank Bonanza" plan that won't work (and I've said that repeatedly).

No offense, but we need somebody a little better than Timmy, somebody who can actually get things done, mainly somebody who can convince Obama that Plan N is vitally necessary and vitally necessary right the hell now. In a sense I don't care who Treasury Secretary is either as long as the economy gets saved.

Because right now we're using the same crap we've been using for the last several years: quantitative easing (a.k.a. Helicopter Ben Throws Money At It). We need a new plan, man. We need a new plan now. Maybe Timmy doesn't have to be replaced for that to happen. And to his credit Obama does seem to be trying to move Plan N into go mode, finally. So yeah Al, keep Geithner under that scenario. You're right about trying to get a new one confirmed.

But we must have a new plan. That plan is Plan N: Nationalize and break-up the banks.