The Times has some interesting detail on the rollout:
With selective leaks to the media for the last several days, the administration had time to explain the complexities in advance, preparing the financial markets over the weekend for what was coming. Mr. Geithner and other administration officials spent days briefing crucial people on Wall Street and working to line up endorsements from prominent equity fund managers and other private-sector “validators,” in particular two leading global investment management firms, BlackRock and Pimco.
In a White House meeting late last week, Mr. Obama personally admonished administration officials to join Mr. Geithner in the plan’s public marketing. As for the Treasury secretary, instead of speaking awkwardly from teleprompters to an audience of financial V.I.P.’s and 17 television cameras, as he did on Feb. 10, Mr. Geithner banned cameras on Monday when he met with reporters to release the plan and answered questions without notes and at length.
Lessons learned, apparently.
P.S. Personally admonished? Weirdly elliptical phrase, that. Were there officials otherwise determined to sit it out?
P.P.S. On a personal note, I can say that the logistics went much more smoothly this time around. Last time, I wasn't the only reporter who didn't get into Geithner's briefing. There were several of us, and a lot of the people who did get in were delayed 30-45 minutes. This time I didn't notice anyone waiting interminably because their name didn't appear on a security list. Come to think of it, I didn't really see anyone waiting at all for that reason. I suspect this also had some affect at the margins. (There were some pretty pissed off reporters last time.)
--Noam Scheiber