BRYAN CAPLAN
May 7, 2013
Keynesian Bets: What's Out There
May 6, 2013
Keynesian Bets Bleg
May 6, 2013
The Pyramid of Macroeconomic Insight and Virtue
May 2, 2013
A Natalist Provision
May 1, 2013
I Was a Teenage Misanthrope
DAVID HENDERSON
May 5, 2013
John Thacker on Vaccinations and the Sequester
May 3, 2013
Chef Rudy's Virtues Project
May 2, 2013
My take on Reinhart and Rogoff
May 1, 2013
Medicare Kills a Program
SHARE
If I remember correctly, Summers is known to have a rather abrasive personality. This may explain the quote rather than anything about Obama himself.
I disagree. Larry Summers is clearly very very good at economics. He has done heavy research. Just about any human being in the world would not know as much economics as Dr. Summers. So why would such an individual find anything a layperson has to say about economics to be absolutely brilliant? We can't expect our president to be a wonk. I believe that would be expecting far too much. If the president is listening to his experts and drawing conclusions based on what they have taught him, shouldn't that suffice?
I'm more or less with Sohaib. It wouldn't be a good recommendation for a practicing economist, but for a non-economist this counts as praise.
The earlier commenters nailed it. Summers is kind of a famous jerk, and the relevant standard for a president is what Summers said it was: intelligent, serious, and thoughtful. It's not reasonable to expect economic brilliance of a kind that would dazzle Summers.
That's a nicer comment about Obama than what Summers said about most of the Harvard faculty when Summers was President of Harvard, at least according to 2nd hand reports of what Summers said in private.
Agree with Sohaib. Also, President Obama is an incredible improvement in this respect over his predecessor and vs the realistic alternatives who might be occupying that office right now.
Obama is "sort of impressive"? That almost sounds like calling him "articulate". So Summers can not only be labeled a sexist, he could also be called a racist. For those who go in for that.
More seriously, these were offhand remarks. According to the journalist, Summers was "musing about the presumptive nominee, whom he knew only in passing".
Does no one go back to the original source any more? Going back to the original article, the quote is from 2008 before Obama was the nominee, when Summers, according to the article, knew Obama "only in passing." Summers was just watching the campaign from the sidelines at the time, so his judgement is coming about listening to political speeches, not mulling over ideas in the oval office. How brilliant can you be in a political speech?
I had much the same feeling as Summers, and additionally, I concluded that he didn't believe what he said about NAFTA. So far it seems like a reasonable bet.