Summers of Our Discontent

By MAUREEN DOWD, NYT

WASHINGTON — I have no doubt that Larry Summers can speak truth to power. Indeed, I’ve seen him yawn at power.

Once, when Vice President Biden was talking to a small group at a holiday party, Summers yawned, checked his watch and walked away while Biden was in midsentence.

While he’s not exactly socialized — he had a lot of unhappy colleagues when he ran the Obama White House’s economic team — I have no doubt that Summers is genuinely smart and gets some credit for the policies that produced the recovery. I’m sure the imperious economist is more mellow than he used to be, because life has taught him he has to be.

But the idea that it is somehow historically inevitable that the chairmanship of the Federal Reserve should go to Summers, that it belongs to him, that he would be an enthusiastic enforcer of bank regulation to protect the little guy?

(More here.)