Geithner Gets a New Speech Writer

It is the only explanation I can see for this change. WSJ's David Wessel writes:

Treasury Secretary Tim Geithner has been criticized for looking, sounding and talking like an investment banker, a job he has never had. But Geithner appears to be trying out a new rhetorical approach. In a speech at the American Enterprise Institute — styled by the Treasury as “a closing argument” in the debate over financial regulatory reform legislation — Geithner rejected the technocratic language that he often favors for a more accessible sermonizing that borrows heavily the cadence of politicians. Has Barack Obama been tutoring him?

A sample:

“When a conservative Republican President – George W. Bush, a President with abiding faith in markets who proposed privatizing social security – is forced by a financial crisis to put Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac into conservatorship, companies that combined –at their peak – represented more than $130 billion in shareholder value;

When a conservative Republican President is forced by failures of financial policy to ask Congress for $700 billion in authority to stabilize the financial system and to invest this taxpayer money into banks that account for three quarters of the entire U.S. banking system;

When a conservative Republican President is forced by a recession, caused by financial failures, to lend billions of dollars to two of our largest auto makers;

When a conservative Republican President is forced to do all that – and he was right to do it – there’s something undeniably wrong with the economy.”

And this:

“Listen less to those whose judgments brought us this crisis. Listen less to those who told us all they were the masters of noble financial innovation and sophisticated risk management. Listen less to those who complain about the burdens of living with smarter regulation or who oppose having to pay a fee for the costs of this or future crises. Instead, listen to the families and businesses still suffering from this crisis. Listen to those who borrowed responsibly but today can’t get a loan or can’t refinance their mortgage. Listen to those who lost their jobs and their healthcare and their pension savings. Listen to them.”