Tales from the Trail

House Republican leader John Boehner’s comment about “punk staffers” involved in the writing of the financial regulation bill did not seem to sit well with White House economic adviser Lawrence Summers.

In an appearance at the National Press Club, Summers made a point of bringing up the comments by Boehner, who urged bankers to stand up for themselves and said they should not “let those little punk staffers” working on the bill take advantage of them.

Boehner may not have been spoiling for a fight, but he got one.

Summers pressed his criticism of lobbyists who the Obama administration accuse of trying to water down the proposals for tighter regulation of Wall Street.

“I do not think of the people who work on this project as ‘little punk staffers.’ I do not think that those who want to address these issues are ‘little punk staffers’ who need to be stood up to,” Summers said.

“And at a time when industry has hired –- has spent $1 million on lobbyists per member of Congress, at a moment when there are four lobbyists per member of the House and Senate working on this issue, we in the administration do not believe that the prominent issue is allowing bankers to stand up for themselves.”

Watch out for the quiet ones in the War of the Wonks (OK so we’re being a bit dramatic).

Mild-mannered Ben Bernanke gets to keep his five-star financial job as Federal Reserve Chairman, winning out over speculation that President Barack Obama was thinking about replacing him with Larry Summers, known among other things for his outsized ego.

Delving into the past of the grey-beard, here are some clues about what propelled him to become the nation’s economic engineer — a job he managed to hold on to despite a national unemployment rate approaching 10 percent.

White House economic adviser Lawrence Summers is rarely at a loss for words, which makes Tuesday's question-and-answer session at the National Press Club in Washington downright astonishing.

Summers, whose term as president of Harvard University ended rather abruptly after he made some unfortunate remarks about women and math and science aptitude, knew he was on very thin ice when he was asked a question about gender differences in retirement savings.

As soon as the question was asked, laughter spread around the room. Summers himself paused for a good 20 seconds before cracking a joke about how the question must have frightened his staff.