THAT'S THE CASE "FOR"?:

The Un-Paulson: Why Timothy Geithner is a strong choice for treasury secretary (Daniel Gross, Nov. 21, 2008, Slate)

Geithner has a great deal in common with Obama. They're almost exactly the same age. (Both were born in August 1961.) They're both products of elite East Coast universities: Geithner was a Dartmouth undergrad and has a master's degree from Johns Hopkins. Like Obama, Geithner is a citizen of the world. He spent a chunk of his childhood in Asia. (He has "lived in East Africa, India, Thailand, China, and Japan," his résumé notes.) Both are skinny, fit, high-energy guys with two children. And like Obama, Geithner sometimes appears mismatched to the majesty of his surroundings. Geithner has a quick laugh, a sense of irony, and bounces in and out of rooms at the sedate New York Federal Reserve, a grand fortress in Lower Manhattan.

One key difference: While Obama abandoned community organizing for politics early on, Geither has stuck with it. Of course, the community Geithner has been trying to organize—with limited success—is the international and domestic financial community.

Geithner worked his way up the ladder in the Treasury Department. As a junior member of the Committee To Save the World in the 1990s, he worked long nights alongside Treasury Secretaries Robert Rubin and Summers to douse the economic forest fires that arose in Mexico, Asia, and Russia. After a brief sojourn at the International Monetary Fund, in 2003 he was an unexpected choice for president of the New York Federal Reserve. (Unlike most of his predecessors in that post, he lacks a Ph.D. in economics.) For the last several years, he's functioned as a sort of den mother for Wall Street. The New York Fed, acting as the agent of the central bank, provides liquidity and succor to financial systems and helps organize aid when a community member fails. Geithner has played a crucial behind-the-scenes role in the bailouts (and, in the case of Lehman Bros., the nonbailouts). As the eyes, ears, and operating arm of the nation's central bank in New York, he knows all the key players. Geithner has a great appreciation for the sensitivities and workings of capital markets.

Geithner, whom I've met briefly, is a creature of the establishment.