I hate to start complaining about the new Obama administration the day after the election, but I am very concerned by the rumors that Larry Summers will be named Treasury Secretary.
As you may know, Larry Summers was Treasury Secretary in the Clinton Administration. When Bush came into office, Summers left Washington and headed to Cambridge, MA to become the President of Harvard. Summers' tenure was marked by controversies and in 2006, under pressure from the faculty, Summers resigned.
Although there are other controversies, my primary interest is in his inflammatory comments about women in science:
"The president of Harvard University, Lawrence H. Summers, sparked an uproar at an academic conference Friday when he said that innate differences between men and women might be one reason fewer women succeed in science and math careers. Nancy Hopkins, a biologist at Massachusetts Institute of Technology, walked out on Summers' talk, saying later that if she hadn't left, ''I would've either blacked out or thrown up." - Boston Globe, 1/15/05
There are other economists qualified to be Treasury Secretary - there is no need to choose a secretary who is so backwards in his attitude toward women. That attitude isn't hope or change...
Updated later: Apparently, Josh Marshall also thinks this would be a crazy nomination: http://www.talkingpointsmemo.com/...