Treasury Secretary Tim Geithner strongly rejected the way he is depicted in “Confidence Men,” Ron Suskind’s new book on the Obama administration’s economic policies and efforts to shore up the financial sector in the wake of the collapse.
“I haven’t read this book, but — to borrow a phrase — I’ve lived the reality,” Geithner told reporters at a White House press briefing Monday. “Reports about this book bear no resemblance to the reality we lived.”
Geithner is just the latest member of the administration to dispute aspects of Suskind’s latest work — both large and small. The book, which will be out Tuesday with excerpts released over the weekend, is full of “sad little stories,” Geithner said.
Geithner joins a chorus of Obama administration officials who have assailed the book and its depiction of the President as wavering and too often submitting to recommendations of his staff.
White House spokesman Jay Carney criticized the book more broadly.
“I too have not read the book but have read a lot about it,” Carney told reporters Monday, arguing that “very simple things facts” that could be ascertained easily such as dates and titles are incorrect.
“One passage seems to be lifted entirely from Wikipedia,” he continued. “I would caution that if you can’t get those things right, you can’t get the broader analysis right.”
A brief one-line passage about the creation of Fannie Mae appears to echo Wikipedia’s description.
“The extraordinarily complex decisions that this President took..it took decisive leadership and clarity of vision to where to take the country, and that was absolutely at the heart of the decisions,” Carney said.
Geithner bristled when asked about the book’s assertion that he ignored or slow-walked a March 2009 order from Obama to weigh the dissolution of Citigroup.
“Absolutely not,” he retorted. “I would never contemplate doing that.”
