Scheiber: A Semi-Defense of Tim Geithner

In the last few days, two prominent financial columnists have suggested the reaction to Tim Geithner’s speech last Tuesday was unfair. The Times Gretchen Morgenson says President Obama put Geithner in an impossible position with his persistent expectation-raising. Jim Cramer writes that the Geithner plan is fundamentally sound–it resists the temptation of nationalization, which would be a fiasco in practice, and has the potential to remedy the situation at a fraction the cost of the alternatives, like a “bad bank.”