The American Spectator

The Spectacle Blog

In the wake of the news that Treasury Secretary nominee Tim Geithner failed to pay $34,000 in federal taxes for a housekeeper, President-elect Obama's allies in the media are starting to see a pattern of blunders, given that it is coming off Bill Richardson's decision to withdraw his nomination as Commerce Secretary. The NY Times calls the Geithner news, "the latest of several stumbles by the previously smooth-running Obama," the Washington Post describes it as "the latest in a series of missteps by Obama's team," and the Associated Press refers to it it as "another jarring distraction just days before Obama's inauguration" that "raises fresh questions about his team's judgment, vetting procedures and political sensitivities." The AP also quotes Stephen Hess of the Brookings Institution as saying the episode is "really quite stunning for a transition team that has so carefully studied everything that might go wrong, and which was faultless up until about a week ago."