I actually feel pretty positive towards reappointing Larry Summers as Treasury Secretary, but if it's really going to cause all sorts of splits and rifts in the Democratic coalition and require all sorts of compensatory appointments, then it's hard to see what the point is. It's not as if Larry Summers is the only man on earth capable of holding this position, or as if he did such a startlingly good job during the Clinton administration that you couldn't possibly conceive of another individual sitting in the Treasury Department's nicest office. Summers, let's remember, was anything but prescient on the current financial crisis -- along with Rubin and Greenspan, he battled vigorously against derivatives regulation in the late-90s -- and though the Department he headed worked well, he was really just overseeing the team and structures created by Robert Rubin. That's not to dismiss the good work he did, but nor is it a record suggesting him the only possible candidate for the job. Timothy Geithner, for instance, would be a perfectly fine choice, and he even served as one of Summers' most trusted lieutenants in the 90s, so he brings direct experience from that halcyon era.
