After spending almost two years questioning, criticizing and even bashing U.S. Treasury Secretary Timothy Geithner '83 for his controversial handling of the country's economy, many national media outlets are recently having a change of heart.
On Monday, The New Yorker and The Atlantic both published features on Geithner casting him and his financial tactics in a largely positive light.
"From his time as a mid-ranking Treasury Department official, during the nineties, to his presidency of the [New York Federal Reserve Bank], from 2003 to 2008, he worked on resolving a series of financial crises around the world," John Cassidy wrote in The New Yorker. "For all the wrath that has descended upon his slight frame, he appears to have succeeded in putting out another inferno."
The profiles come fewer than two weeks after a Feb. 24 article in Politico "Treasury tries to humanize Timothy Geithner" examining the Treasury's new campaign to shift Geithner's public image from "dour" to relatable and well-meaning.
"He is going to spend more time out of Washington," an unnamed Treasury official told Politico. "Last year, the only time you ever saw him was in front of a Congressional committee. He is going to spend more time talking to real people."
The Treasury is concerned that Americans only see Geithner talking "about the most dire of subjects," including "bailouts, bonuses and job losses," Politico reported.
"He lacks the fully realized public persona most government officials develop by the time they're chosen for important Cabinet positions," Joshua Green wrote in The Atlantic.
While Geithner testified in Washington at least 22 times in 2009 often in cable-televised sessions he attended only 15 publicized events outside the Washington Beltway, according to Politico. Eight of the 15 events were located in New York, "where the imagery is more about Wall Street than Main Street," Politico reported.
In 2010, Geithner has already made four appearances outside of Washington, including a trip to Austin, Texas, to speak with Internal Revenue Service employees after a plane was flown into an IRS office there last month, according to Politico.
Politico suggested that the Treasury might be pushing Geithner to travel to these locations because such appearances generate local media attention, which "tends to be much less critical than the national press in Washington."
On Monday, New York Magazine published a blog post on its web site sarcastically praising Geithner for remaining "remarkably stoic" throughout his two years as Treasury secretary, and especially during "the recent spate of humiliating interviews he has apparently been forced to give to basically every media outlet there is including, God help him, Vogue in an attempt to quell the rage over the bailout by explaining that as bad as things look now, they could be much worse."
The post refers to a March 2010 feature in Vogue magazine that praises Geithner for his "affability," for being "named one of the 100 most beautiful people of 2009 by People magazine," and for his Washington office which the profile's author, James Nachtwey, described as "an intimidatingly ornate room worthy of a Hogwarts headmaster."
According to Politico, the Treasury department "made Geithner available for" the "lavish profile," suggesting that the Treasury is trying to use popular magazines as one more way of bringing the image of a relatable, likeable Geithner to the public.
While Nachtwey's profile stayed away from the details of Geithner's financial decisions, even it did not ignore the outpouring of criticism that Geithner has, until now, experienced.
"As the Obama administration's point person for a cratering economy, Geithner knows a thing or two about unpopularity," Nachtwey wrote. "Between the blogosphere and some of the more liberal publications, the off-with-his-head rhetoric has been pretty heated."
