The Age of Hamilton is definitely past, and the pickings are lean when it comes to national leaders of both genius and honor. Perfection is not to be achieved in this less than perfect world. An acceptable if not admirable choice, Mr. Geithner will have to do. Sad to say, he may be the best man, warts and all, for the job.
Secretary Geithner certainly has the requisite experience for his new assignment, and what is experience but another name for having made mistakes? The country will surely wish him the best, for as he succeeds, so may the rest of us.
For another important office, whom does our brave new president and harbinger of Hope and Change choose to head the Securities and Exchange Commission? That agency is much in need of rehabilitation after its last commissioner (Christopher Cox) pretty well destroyed its reputation for sharp-eyed regulation of the markets.
The new broom turns out to be an old one: Mary Schapiro. She was the head of the Financial Industry Regulatory Authority (FINRA for mercifully short) that pretty much ignored one warning after another from financial analysts about the now notorious Bernard Madoff. They rightly suspected he was running a Ponzi scheme that would have out-Ponzi'd Charles Ponzi himself.
But the only thing FINRA did was lecture Mr. Madoff about minor and purely technical violations. Which was a bit like issuing Enron's executives a warning ticket for double parking.
Once again the new president's need for an experienced hand in the financial markets has outweighed his rhetoric (and only rhetoric) about change. He may have low-rated experience during his presidential campaign, but now he seems to feel the need for it.
After all, what was the alternative to appointing these flawed characters?
(And who is not flawed?) Appointing someone who knew nothing about the securities market, except perhaps how to denounce it, would have been a much worse decision -- though it would certainly have pleased the nation's know-nothings on both the left and right.
Barack Obama, despite the messianic hopes he raised, turns out to be only human after all. The good news is that, by making these appointments, he seems to have recognized that he is -- and must do the best he can with the imperfect instruments he's got, to wit Tim Geithner and Mary Schapiro.