Treasury Secretary Timothy Geithner

Timothy Geithner's ordeal last week reminded me of the television series "Quantum Leap," in which a scientist played by Scott Bakula would travel back in time and attempt, against impossible odds, to fix history.

If the show were still running today, we might see an episode in which Bakula travels back to 2005 and finds himself running the Federal Emergency Management Agency during Hurricane Katrina. The federal apparatus was fundamentally unable to deal with a disaster of that scale, and even a time traveler from the future, armed with the benefit of hindsight, would have little chance to favorably affect events.

As unmanageable as Katrina might have been, landing at the U.S. Treasury Department in Geithner's place would be worse. The financial catastrophe is more difficult than a hurricane in every dimension. You can see a hurricane, know its likely path and understand what to do after it strikes.

The financial crisis is invisible, its scale immense, and nobody can be certain about the proper steps to take. The cost of rescuing American International Group Inc. alone is almost double the total federal costs of Hurricane Katrina.

Which makes it easy to feel a great deal of sympathy for the Treasury secretary. Last week, amid the outrage over AIG, the airwaves were filled with calls for Geithner's resignation. The Intrade.com prediction market's future on whether he steps down by year's end climbed to 32 percent, up from about 25 percent two weeks ago.

Incompetence, Corruption

The problems with bonuses at AIG are, in all likelihood, only the tip of the iceberg. A federal government that couldn't deliver potable water to disaster victims after Katrina is charged with distributing trillions of dollars in a financial rescue operation. Any government project of that scale is essentially impossible to manage. There will be incompetence. There will be corruption. People will go to jail.

And to make matters worse, Washington insiders understand this. That's why Geithner can't find people willing to accept a political appointment at Treasury. Not many people are willing to expose themselves to the type of abuse that Geithner is already suffering. Indeed, for a smart Democratic careerist, the optimal move is to wait until this mess is behind us, and only then take a job in Barack Obama's administration.

If we truly were living through a "Quantum Leap" episode, what would Al--the friend from the future who appeared periodically to provide information and moral support to Bakula's character--tell Geithner?

Stop Worrying

First, he would tell the Treasury secretary that he should stop worrying about getting fired this year. There have been 73 Treasury secretaries in U.S. history. The average term has been about three years, with the shortest being that of Joseph Barr, who filled the role for the final month of Lyndon Johnson presidency. Only a handful have left under pressure or some other difficult circumstances.

Presidents are reluctant to fire Cabinet secretaries in their early months because such a swift change makes the president look like a rube. If Obama were to fire Geithner right now, it would cast the administration into a politically lethal level of chaos. There will be a whole lot of whining and moaning, but his job is safe for now.

The second thing Al might tell Geithner is that he should be prepared to be fired in the second year. When the inevitable bad news about the bailouts comes out--misspent money, missing money, fraudulent conveyance of assets, you name it--Obama will need to look decisive in order to preserve his political viability. An easy way to do that will be to fire some of his economic officials. If the economy is bad, he will fire someone whether it's deserved or not.

No Big Deal

The good news is that being fired isn't a big deal in government any more. Economist Larry Lindsey saw his stature in Washington rise as a result of being fired by George W. Bush. This is both because his economic pronouncements were so sage in retrospect and because he handled his ouster with such class.

Geithner will probably be fired no matter what he does, so he should stop worrying about it and just focus on doing the best he can.

Right now, the Treasury's biggest problem is that it is short-staffed. Geithner must find a way to build a competent team at Treasury that can help minimize all of the damage that will be wrought by government fecklessness. He has had troubles recruiting top Democrats to help him run Treasury. He should stop trying and take a "quantum leap" by recruiting top Republicans instead.

Such a solution works for three reasons.

Spread the Blame

The political types in the White House will like the idea because it will help them spread the blame around when the inevitable blow-ups occur.

Second, there are plenty of top minds in the Republican party, people like Michael Boskin or R. Glenn Hubbard, who could make a big difference at Treasury right now.

Third, top Republicans--unlike their Democratic counterparts--will not turn down a job today because they hope to get a choicer job tomorrow. The top jobs are going to Democrats in the Obama administration for as long as it exists.

There is still time for the Geithner story to have a happy ending.

Kevin A. Hassett is a senior fellow and the director of economic policy studies at AEI.