The Obama Geithner Connection

Okay, girls and boys, fasten your seat belts, it’s going to be a bumpy ride.  As regular readers are well aware, Yours Truly is not afraid to don protective clothing and venture forth into the nether regions of TinFoilVille, Obamerica.  Today, I ask you to set aside your skepticism, grab your shiny chapeau, and join me on yet another trek into another dimension, across the line to the Dark Side.  Nothing more is required of you than to sit right back and hear a tale; just mentally follow me as I wind up the Way Back Machine to a land far, far, away, once upon a time, back to the future.  Be not afraid, my pretties, this won’t hurt a bit.  So, put on your high heel sneakers and your red dress, baby; slap that foil-wrapped wig-hat on your head and…okay, enough.  You get the idea; hell, you’ve had it all along, I just felt like messing with you.

Did you know that Turbo Tax Timothy Geithner, tax cheat (TTTG, tc) is the son of Peter Geithner, former Ford Foundation head of the Indonesian region’s microfinance program, which formerly employed one S. Ann Sutoro, Program Director, and Mother of the Obamessiah?  Betcha didn’t.  Well, didja know that when Son of Stanley was going to school in Los Angeles, he went with a Pakistani friend to visit his mother in Indonesia, who was working for TTTG, tc’s father at that time, then spent a couple weeks in Pakistan, before he abruptly transferred to Columbia in New York where TTTG, tc’s dad was headquartered?   Now, you do.  How’s that Jiffy Pop hat fitting now, huh?

According to this Columbia.edu website, Daddy TTTG, tc is also the recipient of the Royal Thai Government Order of the White Elephant.  The plain vanilla site offers no elucidation as to why a Harvard advisor is being featured, nor does it explain why a White Elephant award is a good thing, but hey,  I found it on Google, as is.  If you leave off the letter scramble at the end of the address line, it takes you to Columbia U.’s website, but that’s all I know.  I told you I’d show you around the madhouse, I never said I could explain what it meant.  Sue me.

Peter F. Geithner is an advisor to the Asia Center at Harvard University and a consultant to the Asia Pacific Philanthropy Consortium, Rockefeller Foundation, Sasakawa Peace Foundation, and other organizations. He serves on the boards of the National Committee on United States-China Relations, the China Center for Economic Research (Peking University), the Center for the Advanced Study of India (University of Pennsylvania), Clemente (Holdings) Asia, Inc., and the Institute of Current World Affairs.

Mr. Geithner was with The Ford Foundation for 28 years, where he held program management positions mainly concerned with Asia. He was Director of Asia Programs from 1990 to 1996. Prior to assuming that position, he served for two and a half years as the Foundation’s first representative in Beijing, China. His earlier assignments with the Foundation included Program Officer in Charge, Developing Country Programs (New York), Representative for Southeast Asia (Bangkok), Deputy Head, Asia Pacific (New York), and Deputy Representative for India, Nepal, and Sri Lanka (New Delhi).

Prior to joining The Ford Foundation, Mr. Geithner served with the U.S. Agency for International Development in Zimbabwe, Zambia, and Washington, D.C. He was also Assistant to the President of a private international company, and served for four years as a Naval Aviator.

Mr. Geithner is a graduate of Dartmouth College (BA) and the Johns Hopkins University School of Advanced International Studies (MA). He is a member of Phi Beta Kappa, a recipient of the State Department Distinguished Service Award, and the Royal Thai Government Order of the White Elephant.

Anyway, that info is obviously dated.  Though Pops Cheat is a pretty interesting guy, he’s now retired from giving away other people’s money to future president’s moms to give away, and is currently president of LAFF.  No, I am not making this up.  I read it in the New York Times, so  I know it’s true:

LAFF, which stands for Life After the Ford Foundation, is an alumni association for former foundation employees. It is perhaps the first such organization in the philanthropic community and has inspired former employees of other charities to form their own groups.

The LAFF Society, which holds reunions and other get-togethers in various regions, has 375 to 400 members on its mailing list, said Peter Geithner, its president. “I don’t think we’ve reached our full potential by any means,” he said.

Papa G.’s obviously rather unconventional style gives him a lot in common with the ObaMama, considered to be a pioneer in the field of anthropological microfinance for underprivileged Asian women.  Though from far different backgrounds, both parents afforded their sons with globe-trotting, exotic childhoods, culminating in Peter’s cheater playing Robin to Stanley Ann’s OBatMan.  Small world, huh?

According to The Atlantic, young Timmy’s experiences at Dear Old Dad’s knee in Asia, even in China during the Tiananmen Square uprising, greatly influenced his life choices:

First, his Asia background.  Geithner’s father, Peter Geithner, was a development specialist who opened the Ford Foundation’s China office – the first foreign NGO here, under a special agreement that continues to this day.  That was just before Tiananmen Square, and the father was part of the Foundation’s difficult but, ultimately, undoubtedly correct decision to remain engaged.  Tim apparently also studied Chinese, was posted in Tokyo for Treasury, and focused on Asia studies as undergraduate and graduate student.  This is all great background for Treasury’s international dealings in the coming years.

Yeps, it might be real great for our international money dealings given the amount of foreign investment in our current financial infrastructure; you know, the one the Boy Wonder and the Caped Crusader are so intent upon demolishing to the studs in order to rebuild with the blessing of their UniParty predecessors and evil PuppetMasters?  Oh, yeah, baby, I told you, TiFoilVille, sugar, start the scary Twilight Zone music, now!

We don’t even need the Vast Right Wing Conspiracies to enjoy the deliciously wicked implications of the tangled web that pulling the Geithner/Sutoro knot unravels.  Just knowing that former Secretary of the Treasury, Henry Paulson was just named a “distinguished visiting scholar” at the same Johns Hopkins School of Advanced International Studies (SAIS) that his successor, TTTG, tc, graduated from in 1985, like his daddy before him, is enough to fire up the electrodes on my headgear.  There’s plenty of synapse snapping, corroborating info from so-called “legitimate” sources to keep the old juices flowing like a teenage Madonna’s in the high school football team’s locker room.  And ObaBuddy George Clooney’s dad, Nick’s upcoming March 4, SAIS screening of his and ObaFluffing son, George’s “A Journey to Darfur” documentary is just a little bit of spicy seasoning for the witch’s brew.

A simple peek at Wikipedia’s TTTG,tc entry will tell you about his childhood, education, his DaDa’s relationship with Obama’s mama, his own cozy relationship with Lawrence Summers and Robert Rubin, as well as his position on the Council on Foreign Relations and membership in the Group of 30, all good places to start on the Yellow Brick Road of TinFoilia.  While we’re in town, stop by Logistics Monster’s place and have a good look around, see if we’re in the right place.

TTTG, tc’s New York Fed bio and the profile on the Treasury Dept. website are a little sketchier, but they back up the basics.  Biography.com backs up the Paulson and Bernanke associations, and his involvement in the G-10, the Rand Corporation, the Economic Club of New York, and the Center for Global Development.  Huff’n'Puff sings the praises of his Daddy-O’s legacy of Microcredit.  However, for some strange reason, the International Herald Tribune tries to make it seem that when the soon-to-be Spokesmodel-in-Chief and the hapless TaxMaster met in October and became “smitten with” and “fell in love with each other” they were both unaware of the prior relationship between their respective Parental Units, as unlikely as that may be, given that Geithner was rumored to be the odds on favorite for Treasury Secretary long before that due to his integral position on Obie’s Campaign Finance Committee.  More tinfoil for that red flag, anyone?

The story of Obama’s Mama and her role in assisting Indonesian women get small loans from banks for pots, looms scrap iron and such, which to be fair, often greatly improved these women’s lives and earning potential, is pretty well documented.  If you get a chance, be sure to pick up her dissertation, Peasant Blacksmithing in Indonesia, I hear it’s a real page turner.  Even Wikipedia is useful in informing us of her various personas, manifested throughout her life via her multiple monikers.  Stanley Ann Dunham’s life was markedly different in a lot of ways than that of  S. Ann Sutoro.  It is through this entry that we learn that Stanley Ann Dunham Obama Dunham met her second husband, Lolo Sotoero, at the East West Center on the University of Hawaii Campus.  Ann Dunham had met her son’s father, Barack Obama, Sr., on the same campus years earlier, that time in a Russian language class.  She seems to have had a thing for men who work for oil companies, too, since ObaOne worked for Shell and Lolo worked for Mobil.  The two profiles of Obama, Sr. here and here give interesting background on both parents and their influence on their son, but from wildly different perspectives.

Bloomberg has a rather unflattering look into Obama’s Indonesian years, but ABC News‘ reportage of the moment on the campaign trail when Perpetual Candidate Obama revealed his foreign policy qualifications a being his life in and travels to Indonesia and Pakistan that gives us the piece that makes the puzzle whole.  I told you at the top that Timothy Geithner’s father, Peter was with the Ford Foundation and oversaw a program with which S. Ann Sutoro was intimately involved.  The links I provided show that the years involved were those between 1981 and 1983.  From ABC News:

Apparently, according to the Obama campaign, In 1981 — the year Obama transferred from Occidental College to Columbia University — Obama visited his mother and sister Maya in Indonesia. After that visit, Obama traveled to Pakistan with a friend from college whose family was from there. The Obama campaign says Obama was in Pakistan for about three weeks, staying with his friend’s family in Karachi and also visiting Hyderabad in Southern India. (emphasis mine)

I guess the future Savior of All That’s Good and Holy in the Free World must have juuuuuust missed his future Sidekick-to-be, huh?  Imagine that.   And, he probably was planning to transfer out of Occidental, anyway, don’t ya think?  That little side trip to Pakistan was probably something like a Spring Break thing, right?  Sure.

Okaaay-dokaaay, boys and girls, time to say the magic words, “Twizzle twazzle twuzzle, twome, time for this one to go home.”  Wow, wasn’t that fun?  Maybe next time we get together we can go to the Nepotism Club on Rahm Emanuel Street.  Or, maybe we’ll stop by Skadden Arps, or one of the other tinfoil lawfirms or, visit one Omerica’s many fine University campuses.  Isn’t it great to know that TinFoilVille is not the only fun place in Obamerica?  Just about any street you go down there has just oodles and scadoodles of fun things to see and do.

So, take your time, follow the links down the side streets and alleyways where ever they may lead.  Don’t be scared, there’s no real danger, well, okay maybe a little, but not nearly as much as there is if you don’t go exploring and see for yourself.  Even if you do find yourself at a dead end, don’t panic, the way back is clearly marked.  And, who knows, you might find a whole new puzzle to solve!

See you next time, same Bat-time, same Bat-channel.  And remember, “through the years we’ll all be friends, wherever we may be…

M-I-C-…see ya real soon!

K-E-Y…why?  Because we like you!

M-O-U-S-Eeeeee-eeeeeeee!”