It was a debacle on every level, and from Mr. Geithner’s account it seems he and his staff could see it coming like a slow-motion car crash. After settling on Feb. 10 to roll out the administration’s plan, the Geithner aide Meg McConnell noted, “But we don’t have a plan.” Indeed. “The run-up to my speech was horribly tense,” Mr. Geithner writes. “White House staff wanted the speech to reassure the public by emphasizing our determination to get tough on Wall Street and save taxpayer dollars. My Treasury team wanted to reassure the markets by emphasizing our determination to do whatever it took to prevent more bank failures. The results were predictably schizophrenic.”