Has Obama Picked Summers’ Replacement?

Could Larry Summers be replaced by another old Clinton hand? Bloomberg News says that Roger Altman, a former deputy Treasury secretary under President Clinton, has interviewed to replace Summers as the head of the National Economic Council. President Obama met with Altman Tuesday afternoon. Altman, who founded Evercore Partners Inc., has close ties with the business community. Jon Cohn at The New Republic writes, “The optics make no sense to me. A major source of discontent with Obama is the perception that he's too close to the financial industry. Or, to put it more bluntly, everybody that doesn't work on Wall Street hates Wall Street. Making somebody from the financial industry the president's top economic adviser sends exactly the wrong message.”