Obama's staffing problems are blatant -- from that bleating boy of a treasury secretary to what appears to be a total vacuum where a chief of protocol should be. There has been one needless gaffe after another -- from the president's tacky appearance on a late-night comedy show to the kitsch gifts given to the British prime minister, followed by the sweater-clad first lady's over-familiarity with the queen and culminating in the jaw-dropping spectacle of a president of the United States bowing to the king of Saudi Arabia. Why was protest about the latter indignity confined to conservatives? The silence of the major media was a disgrace. But I attribute that embarrassing incident not to Obama's sinister or naive appeasement of the Muslim world but to a simple if costly breakdown in basic command of protocol.

As December drew to a close, Mr. Lambright's team had $48 billion worth of deals to finalize, including the $20 billion for Citigroup, $4 billion for General Motors Corp. and $15 billion of capital injections into various banks.

Many of the companies wanted their money in hand before the end of the year. On New Year's Eve, Mr. Lambright was fielding one phone call after another, including the tense call with Mr. Crittenden of Citigroup. Before Treasury could wire the $20 billion to Citigroup, it needed waivers from about 50 executives allowing the government to curb their pay. The Treasury had been requesting the documents for about two weeks, but several were still missing.

"This is good news," Mr. Lambright told Mr. Crittenden, according to several accounts of the call. "This tells me you don't really need the money. Let's talk next year." The waivers arrived within hours.

A little later, Mr. Lambright was on the phone with Mr. Young of GM, haggling over some details the Treasury was demanding. Mr. Lambright was in no mood to negotiate.

"You're our third-biggest deal of the day," Mr. Lambright told GM's chief financial officer, according to three people familiar with the call. "So if you don't want to do this now, we have plenty else to do. Call us later."

GM agreed to the government's offer, and received its cash before the New Year.