Denouement For The Snowman

Quick take on Hank Paulson: a good choice. I was concerned that Bush might have a Miers relapse and go with someone like Don Evans, but sobriety prevailed. Paulson will provide some much-needed street cred to balance Ben Bernanke's manifest ivory tower naivete.

Here's the problem: implicit (and often explicit) in media reports on Paulson is the assumption that to succeed where Snow failed, Paulson will need to be a better "salesman" for the White House. In other words, his job will be to convince these people that they just don't get it. If Paulson simply picks up where Snow left off, the results won't be pretty. Snow elicited knee-slapping belly laughs on Wall Street trading floors every time he deadpanned "we favor a strong dollar," and so will Paulson if he takes to the airwaves with absurd platitudes about "our economic miracle." Better to just keep quiet and maintain a vestige of credibility for when it's really needed. I know, I know....what are the chances of that? There's only so much Paulson can really do; under this administration, Treasury's emasculation has left it as little more than a cheap marketing outfit, and the die is cast for the dollar. But I can't believe Paulson would take the job to become a caged parrot, and my guess is that he accepted only with preconditions of his own.

We'll see.