There was Paul O'Neil who had been CEO of Alcoa. He lasted about a year, but he wasn't a team player. John Snow replaced him, he was CEO of CSX, the railroad company. He had a conflict of interest concerning his stock options with Fannie or Freddie, but the job buster for him was the Dubai Port deal I think. Snow was more of team player than O'Neil, he went to Congress whenever Bush needed to raise the Federal Spending limits. You could always tell when Bush had held one of his corporate meetings, the policy pom poms, and the strong economy mantra were repeated verbatim by every cabinet undersecretary, at every photo op..

Snow gave way to Paulson just in time for the midterm elections in 2004. Paulson's old firm, GS then rejiggered their commodity index, and drove gasoline prices down ahead of the election, and that might have kept the Republicans in majority, but Markos and his people did a terrific grass roots jobs of getting people like Jim Webb to beat out encumbents like George Allen, but Paulson had delivered.

Obama may change his appointment at Treasury, and guessing that me might like to promote in-house, he could bring Clinton into the job. The crux of the matter is this, Geithner being a Goldman, Wall Street insider, may have too many obstacles to overcome. If he has to be replaced Obama won't replace him with another Wall Street insider. (Just to backtrack a bit, O'Neil and Snow were not Wall Street insiders, they ran large industrial companies, it was under Paulson, the financial guy that things went bad in a hurry.

It's a story of courtly intrigue really, Goldman, Treasury, and the Federal Reserve. Bush stepped aside and the mice ate the cheese, and we had indigestion. Obama must know this, just like he knows there are some creeps in CIA who run the torture show, and the puppet head of foggy bottom hasn't a clue. What he is going to do about it, that is the real question surrounding him, his presidency, and his political well-being.

Some years ago I was in Lake Tahoe, at a restaurant. I ordered the salad, and freshly ground pepper, but I noticed some of the pepper flakes had legs and antenna and things. I mentioned it to the waitress, who said, "don't worry, it's extra protein."

I ate the salad, after all I had been in the Navy, and worked on the mess decks for a time, and will tell you flat out, if you have been in the service you have eaten cockroach, boiled, stewed, and every other way.

However I also appreciate modern standards. I do so probably because I would like to forget those Navy mess halls.

Boy I hate to be the first one to post a response, but I just picked a big semisoft booger out of my right nostril, and I am running it across the scroll wheel on my mouse, while I read this, thinking about pizza cheese, and wondering what my girlfriend was doing with my toothbrush last night. She hates it when I ignore her and I watch Southpark instead.

The issue here seems to be big banks versus small banks, and small banks are lending, but they don't have enough money to make much of a difference. We bailed out the wrong guys. Now Treasury has to put some lipstick on this pig, i.e. The Stress Test. There is still plenty of time for Treasury to define the term, 'New Lending', allow the banks to exploit the reality gap, and fill that gap, and come up with acceptable numbers.

In the end the banks may simply lend to each other. The Stress Test may not be a H.S. diploma, more like a G.E.D., which means if the expectations are lowered, no one will question the results.

How do they lower expectations? Probably by repeating the byline that the worst is over, and therefore Stress Levels have come down.

Boy I'm not sure why I do this, I could be working for them..

After the midterm elections Pelosi wasted no time ousting Harman from her seat, and appointing another Blue Dog Democrat, Reyes from Texas, whose background and suitability were not quite up to standards. Pelosi herself must be considered a Blue Dog. The position that impeachment is off the table reflects this policy position.

The pertinent issue is did the Republicans go after the moderate Democrats early in Bush's first term, and what were their motives? Assuming Bush knew he always wanted to go into Iraq, and noting that American policy on Israel took a hard right immediately after Bush was elected, we can start to piece together the players. Bush was more than happy to see Pelosi get the Speakers job, we should assume.

So is Harman being framed? What did Pelosi know that caused her to dump Harman, and who killed Chandra Levy, (allegedly a Salvadoran immigrant) which resulted in the exit of Gary Condit, the other Northern California Blue Dog, after a trial by media, in which he was implicated in her death.

Condit sat in an advisory post on the Intelligence Committee I believe.

If Republican operatives, using Israeli agents, or the other way around, decided to compromise some key moderate Democrats, through intimidation, and extortion, then we finally have the smoking gun, the reason why Democrats caved on Iraq, and further ammunition for 911 conspiracy theorists, because the time frame could go back to 2000.

Politically it would have made good sense to attack moderate Democrats, and isolate the Left. Did the Rove/Bush people make a deal with Israeli intelligence, as Bush I was part of the weapons for hostages deal with Iran in 1980. Perhaps Bush II didn't know about the 2000 plan. One thing you can count on is that moderate Democrats have taken a big hit to their political prestige.