On July 10, Treasury Secretary Tim Geithner left little doubt that the rumors of his impending departure were not without basis. Asked on NBC’s Meet The Press if he would stay on with the administration until the end of Obama’s first term, Geithner replied, “For the foreseeable future.” Then he added cryptically, “Well, foreseeable is, you know, a complicated word.”
If President Obama was not already worried, this was a clear shot over the bow. Geithner’s departure, in the current political and economic environment, would have opened up another hornets’ nest. With the economy still teetering, and 2012 elections fast approaching, Geithner’s departure would have denied the president his longest serving economic policy adviser and chief ambassador to Wall Street, and it would have kicked off a brutal confirmation battle in the Senate for a replacement. (Republicans, led by Oklahoma Sen. James Inhofe, are already holding up Obama’s Commerce Secretary nominee.)
But this is one crises Obama has avoided. On Sunday, Geithner announced that he would stay on the job. The White House immediately put out a statement of relief. “The President asked Secretary Geithner to stay on at Treasury and welcomes his decision.” There is a lot packed into that verb “asked.” The pressure from the White House, both via Obama and Chief of Staff Bill Daley, on Geithner has been intense. On Tuesday, after Obama finished addressing the press in the Rose Garden, photographers captured a grim looking Geithner exiting the West Wing. He declined reporters invitations to answer a couple question.
In addition to exhaustion after three years of non-stop economic damage control, Geithner has been heading to exits for a practical reason: His wife and family recently relocated back to New York City so his son could finish his last year of high school there. For the first months of the Obama administration, Geithner had also lived in Washington DC without his family, living rent-free in the Georgetown home of a friend. In August of 2009, his family relocated south, moving to a four bedroom home that Geithner bought in Maryland.
