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A couple of weeks ago, Seth Mandel wrote at Commentary that with former White House chief of staff Bill Daley’s return to Chicago, the rest of the original Obama White House staffers are like ‘rats eager to leave the Obama Concordia:

The New York Times tries admirably to parrot the administration line, calling Daley’s departure a “distracting shake-up in a White House that has prided itself on a lack of internal drama, with a tightly knit circle of loyal senior advisers playing a steadying role.” But the paper is forced to give away the game later on in the story, revealing the Obama White House for what it is: the Hotel California of presidential administrations:

While the president said he asked Mr. Daley to reconsider his decision, he did not apply the kind of pressure he brought to bear on Treasury Secretary Timothy F. Geithner, who has for several months been eager to return to New York.

The Times is right; Geithner has been begging to leave. And far from being chock full of “loyal senior advisers,” the White House is made up of people trying desperately to get out before their term is up (Daley, Geithner) and comically disastrous hires to which Obama has shown a generous amount of loyalty (Eric Holder, former press secretary Bob Gibbs).

And reading between the lines, Geithner is still eager to escape, the L.A. Times reports today:

Treasury Secretary Timothy F. Geithner says he’s “confident” he won’t be serving a second term, even if President Obama is reelected.

“He’s not going to ask me to stay on, I’m pretty confident,” Geithner told Bloomberg Television on Wednesday. “I’m confident he’ll be president. But I’m also confident he’s going to have the privilege of having another secretary of the Treasury.”

Cabinet secretaries are rarely expected to serve a second term, and Geithner is no exception. As the last remaining member of Obama’s original economic team, Geithner has fought back rumors of his departure before.

Unfortunately — if not at all surprisingly — the L.A. Times doesn’t echo the New York Times’ report, which states that Geithner’s only staying on because he’s been pressured to do so. Keep rockin’!