A tale of two Larrys

Few public figures have elicited such mixed emotions from me in recent years as Lawrence Summers, former Treasury Secretary under President Clinton and president of Harvard, and now head of the National Economic Council under President Obama.

Fairly or not, Mr. Summers has been the subject of more than a little controversy over the last decade, from his partiality toward deregulation of financial institutions while at Treasury--which is oft-cited as one of the many causes of today's financial crisis--to his very public feud with esteemed professor and activist Cornel West, to his infamous remarks regarding women and science in 2005 which served as the catalyst to remove him from the top post at Harvard one year later, to his most recent stint as a part-time adviser at New York hedge fund D.E. Shaw prior to his return to public service in Washington this year.

I certainly am not foolish enough to claim that Larry can do no wrong. He displayed, on multiple occasions, a somewhat brash and condescending demeanor that has cost him quite a few friends in academia and proved to be his downfall at Harvard. In today's New York Times, columnist Frank Rich rightly blasts Summers and his Treasury predecessor, Robert Rubin, for their firm commitment to deregulation of Wall Street back in the 1990s. Indeed, Larry's love for our free-market system almost certainly clouded his ability to serve effectively as a servant of the larger public and to place greater emphasis on pursuing careers outside of Wall Street as president of the nation's greatest institute of higher learning.

That being said, I don't believe Larry to be an ill-intentioned individual. I am particularly drawn to him due to his insistence on expanding Harvard's undergraduate financial aid program through the landmark Harvard Financial Aid Initiative, started in 2004 (the year I matriculated). Were it not for this breakthrough, I almost certainly would be unable to refer to myself today as a Harvard graduate, and the many doors that I now find open would have remained firmly shut. This, incidentally, was the primary reason for which I believed the "witch hunt" conducted against Larry by the Harvard faculty back in 2005-06 was unfair because many faculty members failed to realize--or care--that Larry's staunch support of the program had greatly enriched student life at the University.

On a less personal note, I am more inclined to chalk up Larry's exposure to today's most vilified institutions as simply a product of his passion for his field of study. Let there be no mistake: the man is brilliant--even a nerd of sorts. He became, at age 28, one of the youngest tenured professors in Harvard's history. Sure, he may have slept with the devil from time to time, but he knows his stuff and has applied his background to causes both public and private, noble and not so noble.

The irony is that his now supposedly in-depth understanding of how Wall Street thinks may be his most valuable asset as he takes on his historically unprecedented task of finding solutions for this ailing economy. This theory is rather well examined in Louise Story's recent Times article. Anticipating the financial sector's response to government actions provides him, Secretary Geithner and the rest of President Obama's economic team the best chance to formulate winning solutions. And, at the end of the day, it is the President who gives orders and directives to Summers; given that few would question Obama's commitment to fixing this economy for the sake of those losing their jobs, homes and retirement (and not for the Wall Street fat cats who largely caused this mess), it is reasonable to assume that Larry has this in mind as he brainstorms with the other wonks in the Administration.

This global crisis in many ways presents Larry Summers an opportunity to redeem himself for past mistakes, misguided priorities, and yes, unfair accusations. Let's hope, if not for his sake, then for the sake of the world economy, that he succeeds.