That’s what Roger Simon of Politico asks in his newest column. I offer this not so much for the commentary, but rather for the nice little summary Simon provides.

He didn’t pay all of his federal taxes for years. Then, after Obama decided to name him treasury secretary, Obama’s vetting team discovered Geithner’s little oversight.

Not paying your taxes is considered serious for some people. But not for Geithner, a Wall Street “wonder boy” — he is 47 — who is president of the Federal Reserve Bank of New York and was instrumental in putting together the recent Wall Street bailout package.

You would think a guy like this would know about paying taxes, but no. Mistakes were made.

Geithner failed to pay the proper self-employment taxes for 2001, 2002, 2003 and 2004, even though he was sent documents telling him he had to do so.

But in 2006, Geithner got a document he couldn’t ignore. The IRS sent Geithner a notice saying he had not paid his taxes for 2003 and 2004, and Geithner paid up.

But he did not pay up for 2001 and 2002, even though he must have known that he skipped taxes for those years, too.

He didn’t pay those taxes until Barack Obama decided he wanted Geithner to head the treasury and Obama sent vetters to look into Geithner’s past.

The vetters discovered Geithner’s little tax error in November and told Geithner. Then Geithner paid up, with interest. The vetters also told Obama, of course.

Simon goes on to note that Obama knew of the problem back in November, yet said nothing about the problem until the Wall Street Journal blew the cover on Tuesday.

Additionally, the Senate Finance Committee has discovered that Geithner included overnight camp expenses in calculating his dependent child care credit for three years — something his accountant notified him was not legitimate. His response? To ignore the accountant.

Can I get this deal? Can I ignore my accountant? He is always telling me that my trips to Vegas are not allowable under “necessary mental health expenses” and, fool that I am, I keep listening to him…

OK. I’ll buy that. But as secretary of the treasury, Geithner would be in charge of the Internal Revenue Service. And we will see how easy he is on other people when they say they made “honest mistakes.”

Indeed.