"Blame Timmy!" revisited

Here's a follow up to our previous post -- the one about claims that Tim Geithner refused to follow Obama's orders to do something about Citibank. A plain blog about politics (a good site previously unread by me) brings up this relevant tale from the days of FDR...

Half of a President's suggestions, which theoretically carry the weight of orders, can be safely forgotten by a Cabinet member. And if the President asks about a suggestion a second time, he can be told that it is being investigated. If he asks a third time, a wise Cabinet officer will give him at least part of what he suggests. But only occasionally, except about the most important matters, do Presidents ever get around to asking three times.

Yeah, well -- it is still the case that FDR got things done. If he wanted something like Citigroup dissolved, it would have been gone quicker than the Wicked Witch of the West.

Incidentally, for those of you enamored of the third party option, you may want to read this post and this post, from the same site. (I like this guy because he has a sense of history.) The lesson: The third party, if it comes, may not be funded by whom you think. And it likely won't be a party headed by someone to the left of Obama.

My guess: If Rick Perry sews up the R nomination, then someone like Steve Forbes may jump in -- especially if those wacky rumors of Perry's womanizing (or man-izing) turn out to be not so wacky after all. Yes, I admit it: I've kind of had Forbes in the back of mind ever since I woke up from that really, really bad dream about him. (I told you about that nightmare in an earlier post, didn't I? Seriously. It was horrible.)