Can an Old Dog Teach Geithner a Few Tricks?

By Judith Miller , Fox News

Published February 12, 2009 2:34am EST | Updated May 7, 2015 10:18am EDT

Thu, 12 Feb 2009 02:34:11 +0000 – By Judith MillerWriter/FOX News Contributor

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Timothy Geithner

Lawrence Jackson

Madison Square Garden

Hotel Penn on doggie treadmills to prep for the event and savored pre-show massages, spas and nail grooming sessions -- Stump hadn't trained for Westminster. In fact, his owner said, he had barely walked Stump up and down the driveway of his home in Houston, Texas before deciding last week to enter the veteran pooch in the world's most subjective pet beauty pageant. But Stump's appeal could not be denied. "He showed his heart out," said Best in Show Judge Sari Tietjen, who said she had no idea when she selected him that Stump was a senior. The boisterous hound was "everything you'd want in the breed," she explained. "I couldn't say no to him." What the country wants now from Mr. Geithner is a Stump-like performance. Revelations of his tax-chiseling-like ways (such as deducting his child's summer camp from his income taxes) and apparent disdain for tough-minded regulation of the financial sector -- raised questions about his fitness for the post in such troubled times. Many quietly favored a more seasoned, widely respected figure, say, former Federal Reserve chairman Paul Volcker. But the naysayers complained that Volcker, like Stump, was too old. There are, in fact, many strengths to Geithner's approach, the most obvious being his decision to rely on the private sector to help price the toxic assets the bail-out package is expected to remove from the books of our Zombie banks, or as Geithner put it, "to mobilize and leverage private capital, not to supplant" it. But before the private sector buys into the plan, those gaping holes of questions need filling now rather than later. What we don't need is a reprise of the show staged by former Treasury Secretary Hank Paulson, who seemed to be improvising as he went along. We know how that performance ended: with a mess on the floor.