Seamless transition

Team Obama and the Bush administration have also apparently put aside campaign vitriol and are now walking arm in arm when it comes to the bailout, at least for now. Another sign they want to be cooperating: The White House has said nothing about Obama's call for a massive stimulus package, which might top $500 billion. In better times, a GOP White House might have derided such rampant Keynesianism.

Geithner's selection may have provided the continuity that markets like, but it ties Obama to many of the steps already taken.

What's more, Geithner's nomination, along with that of former Treasury chief and Harvard University president Lawrence Summers to be director of the National Economic Council, opens up the nascent Obama administration to the charge that it's linked to the deregulation of Wall Street that occurred during the Clinton administration, when the pair served under then-Treasury secretary Robert Rubin.

Word of the nominations leaked as Treasury was moving to rescue Citigroup. On the evening of Nov. 23, officials agreed to provide Citi with a $20 billion capital injection and to guarantee a $306 billion pool of troubled assets. That adds to a previous purchase of $25 billion of preferred shares as part of the Treasury's Troubled Asset Relief Program. In return, the U.S. gets veto power over executives' pay and bonuses. Citigroup will stop paying dividends to common stockholders for at least three years and will step up mortgage modifications for troubled borrowers.

Bush spokesman Tony Fratto said Obama was kept informed as regulators rushed to craft the Citi package and conceded there will be tight coordination of economic matters between the current and incoming administrations. Characterizing a call to Obama while the president was flying back from a trade meeting in Peru, Fratto said Bush "wanted to make sure that President-elect Obama knew everything we were doing," Fratto said during a Nov. 24 press briefing. "It's very important that we're on the same page on all of this."

Fratto acknowledged that such close communication is unprecedented. "In terms of the transition from this administration to the next, I think you're seeing something that has never been done before," he said. "I don't think you've ever seen this level of communication and cooperation at all levels -- you know, from lower levels to senior staff to the president and the president-elect. I think it's really extraordinary. I think it's something that, you know, history writers will look back on as an important feature of this time period."

Campaign speechwriters no doubt will, too, particularly Republican ones if the policies fail to prevent a protracted economic contraction.

Senate Banking Committee Chairman Richard Shelby, R-Ala., has led a core of GOP lawmakers who have opposed the Treasury's $700 billion TARP -- from which the Nov. 23 $20 billion infusion in Citigroup was funded, as well as contemplated bailouts of the U.S. auto industry.

Obama and congressional Democrats won't have deniability come the 2010 and 2012 elections, but Shelby's band of Republicans will, which is one advantage of being out of power. "For the government to say we're going to save Citigroup, I think that's a mistake. Or to save any particular company or corporation," he said Nov. 23 on ABC's "This Week."

Obama is moving fast, despite being out of power. Politically, that will be a good thing only if he produces real results. Welcome to power.