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By Amy Argetsinger and Roxanne Roberts

Thursday, November 27, 2008

Thanksgiving Talking Points

Time for the annual family gathering, where it's your job to fill the bitter silences at the dinner table -- and convince the clan you've really made it in D.C. It will be so much easier to impress them now that your smug cousin has lost his big-shot Wall Street job. And yet, you don't want them to think they can crash at your place for the inauguration! So here, once again, are our handy-dandy talking points for you, the consummate too-busy-to-be-bothered Washington insider. (They're not necessarily true, but what does that matter?)

Financial Crisis

· "Geithner got Treasury because he plays better with others than Summers, but that's who's really going to run the economic policy shop. Then, if he can keep his foot out of his mouth for a year, he'll be Fed chair."

· "Paulson's decision to do bank recapitalization instead of asset purchases with the TARP was right on the merits -- but he looked indecisive when he sent mixed signals to Congress for the second $350 billion tranche."

· "One word: Plastics."

Obama Family

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