Daring Larry.

• Author: SMICK, DAVID M.
• Position: Lawrence Summers - Brief Article

At the time of this writing, the U.S. presidential contest is a virtual dead heat. Lawrence Summers is still Treasury Secretary, but perhaps not for long.

Certainly this publication has enjoyed its fair share of fun with the brainy Treasury official. On one cover, he was an Arnold Schwarzenegger wannabe. On another, Time Magazine's Man of the Year. Then there was the absentminded professor, shirttail exposed with ubiquitous Diet Coke in hand. In a lot of ways, Summers reminds us of former Reagan/Bush economic official Richard Darman: intellectually superior and uncannily creative. The difference is that Darman could be mean spirited. Summers may irritate, but there's no sense of vindictiveness. He is an honorable man.

That is why, though we may sometimes disagree on issues, the career of Larry Summers is so interesting. When all is said and done, and despite a sometimes less than diplomatic style, Summers is no phony. Several years ago, this magazine ran a short story labeling World Bank President James Wolfensohn "the only honest man in Washington." Wolfensohn did something atypical in the wake of the Asian crisis. He admitted things hadn't gone perfectly. Mistakes were made. Over the last couple of years, Larry Summers has backed himself into becoming the second "only honest man in Washington." At a time when theory and ideology are dead, when short-term partisan "spin" is all that counts, Summers has emerged as a real policymaker.

Consider three recent instances:

1) STRATEGIC PETROLEUM RESERVE

Earlier this fall with oil prices rising, the White House at Vice President Gore's urging dipped into the Strategic Petroleum Reserve as a means of manipulating the oil market. It turns out that in the middle of an intensely close presidential campaign, the Treasury Secretary behind-the-scenes took a tough, politically unpopular stand against using the Reserve. True, Summers' opposition was leaked to the press and he quickly had no choice but to do a u-turn. But the remarkable thing is that he was willing...