“No one should begrudge Timothy Geithner his new job. It was inevitable that a man who had been spiritually captured by Wall Street would someday join it in the flesh. In truth the former Treasury secretary held out far longer than the band of Rubinites he sprang from. And by joining a respectable private-equity firm, Warburg Pincus—rather than one of the banks he bailed out—at least Geithner is avoiding the path to reputational ruin followed by his mentor, Robert Rubin, who while he was in Washington freed up Citigroup to become an economy-destroying monster and then went to Wall Street to join it, standing by in befuddlement while the bank nearly imploded.

“Geithner has a family to feed after all; he has every right to cash in with the vast industry he saved and protected. It seems a bit overripe for Dennis Kelleher, head of the Better Markets advocacy group, to suggest that Geithner’s “spin through the revolving door” will “further erode public confidence in government,” when such confidence is all but undetectable today.

“But neither should Geithner get a full pass, as CNBC’s Ben White seems all too eager to give him in a Web piece today.”

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Read full National Journal article here