Is This The Best That Obama Can Do?

When it comes to the mobbed up Lawrence Summers, sadly the answer is probably yes.

But the more we find out about the former Harvard president and world-class ego tripper, the more problematic his selection as President Obama's chief economic adviser becomes because of his relentless intermingling of public policy with private profiteering.

We already know that Summers made $5.2 million last year from a hedge fund for a one-day-a-week job and another $2.7 million in speaking fees to Citigroup, Goldman Sachs and other taxpayer bailout babies.

But we now learn that the guy who as Harvard's president infamously scolded Cornel West for neglecting his professorial duties by making a spoken-word CD was doing some moonlighting himself as an adviser for the selsame hedge fund whose co-founder he unsuccessfully tried to install to run TTARP -- the Troubled Troubled Assets Relief Program.