The Clever Mr. Summers and Eleventh-Level-Chess Obama

I've just finished reading Ron Suskind's 2011 book, Confidence Men: Wall Street, Washington, and the Education of a President. The book could probably be called reportage, or even history, but there are several wisdom/truth themes in it that ring deeply for me.

Ron Suskind

One of these themes is the truth that smarts – intellectual quickness, rapid memory retrieval, debate-winning, assertiveness, extensive information, cleverness – is not the same thing as wisdom.

The confusion between the two allows all sorts of mischief in education, business, finance, politics and just every aspect of social and personal life. Suskind gets to that in the case of “the clever Mr. Summers” (Paul Volcker's phrase):

p. 349: [Quoting Summers:] “I can win any argument. I can win arguing either side.”

p. 118: That was [Summers'] feat, an illusionist's trick calling for a certain true genius: he could will into being the confidence that eluded others – those less self-assured and, maybe, on humbler terms with the complexities of the world.

p.84: It all boils down to the classic Larry Summers problem: he can frame arguments with such force and conviction that people think he knows more than he does. Instead of looking at a record pockmarked with bad decisions, people see his extemporaneous brilliance and let themselves be dazzled. Summers' long career has come to look, more and more, like one long demonstration of the difference between wisdom and smarts.”

President Obama also has smarts like this and I think that is why he is so very fond and faithful to Summers despite countless, mystified attempts of good people to indicate to Obama that something is wrong. We saw this early on when Obama appointed Summers, Geithner and Rahm Emanuel:

p. 164: “At a meeting in December 2008, Byron Dorgan...'You've picked the wrong people,' he said to Obama, citing Geithner and Summers, both of whom Dorgan knew. 'I don't understand how you could do this. You've picked the wrong people!'”

Paul Volcker

p.288: “[Paul Volcker] told all this to Obama, in various ways. 'I think Obama understands everything intellectually, very easily, near as I can see. What we don't know is whether or not he has the courage to follow through.”

Barack Obama is obviously, like Larry Summers, very bright, quick, informed and articulate. He is also very good at handling people, including children, and a master politician, whereas Summers is not. No one doubts that he is immensely talented. So why is it that he doesn't follow through, “leads from behind,” is nowhere to be found at the crucial moments, doesn't use the bully pulpit, finds backbone more often against people who wish him well than against his true enemies, is such a disappointment to us, and lets escape so many opportunities to make a real, fundamental difference?

One specific example cited by Suskind, p. 339, that brings to mind the phrase, “an illusionist's trick;”

“The public face of the administration was as gender-progressive as any in history...[But, Geithner said in private,] 'The perception is that women have real power, yet they all feel like shit.'"

I think think that the answer to this mystifying problem is that Obama and Summers are both very smart people who were able to get what they wanted because they were bright. Summers, Rahm, Geithner are all clever people who complement and supplement each other – and thus the seemingly mystifying bond Obama has with them. He is ultimately one of them. To quote Volcker once again:

p. 343: “He seems to feel he has all he needs in the clever Mr. Summers. Together they're both so very confident.”

Obama and Summers

Now, I grew up in a town that had an unusually large number of punks and I never imagined that one day I would be grateful for having had that horrifying experience, which enabled me later to understand this. These guys were physically strong and able; bright; their meanness unacknowledged by officials. They got away with everything. They knew when to suck up, when to be defiant. But they nonetheless were violent, thieving, destructive, merciless punks. I moved out of that hell-hole and spent many years around high-class places like Harvard only to discover that the fundamental reality was every bit the same there as in the small town. One was far more sophisticated, clever, informed, than the other, but underneath they were basically the same.

There is one other wisdom theme in Suskind's book that I would like to bring out in a future article but is so pertinent to what I've written here that I will just mention it now. And that is his insight that “going along with it” is a big thing. He speaks of ordinary clients going along with and patronizing “Goldman or JPMorgan or any number of large hedge funds not in spite of the threat that those firms will act beyond the edge of propriety, but because of it. They are counting on it.”

Here, let him describe the attitude and the consequence:

p. 404: “Let them do whatever they want, just as long as I, as a valued customer, get a piece of it. And if I can help in any way, I will.” This is, of course, the way criminal syndicates rise up. It's an issue of might...If it's not going to change, then why not be part of it? If they didn't sign on, their competitor would.