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Cornel West: Obama 'Seduced by Braininess' of Economic Policy Chief Larry Summers

By Sheryl H. Salomon on Oct 28th 2009 12:20AM
Filed under: Interviews, President Obama

Comments (61)

Larry Summers and Cornel West

What would you say about President Barack Obama appointing a key advisor with the following past:

*As the chief economist of the world's biggest lender to the Third World, reportedly extolled the virtues of dumping toxic waste in developing countries, saying, "I've always thought that underpopulated countries in Africa are vastly underpolluted."

*As the head of a top university, said that innate differences in ability between men and women might help explain why fewer women become professional scientists or engineers.

*As head of that same university, reportedly questioned the scholarship and integrity of one of the nation's most respected and well-known African-American academics.

*While advising a previous president on the economy in the 1990s, warned a government official to stop trying to regulate the over-the-counter derivatives market – the same free-wheeling market that contributed to last autumn's economic meltdown.

Princeton professor Cornel West, the aforementioned black academic and author of the seminal book on American race relations, 'Race Matters,' would say it's "a colossal mistake" for Obama to appoint someone like that to his inner circle of advisors. "When you have that kind of lineage you say, wait a minute it's clear there's a problem regarding the integrity," West told Black Voices in a recent interview (see the video below).





And yet that's what Obama did when he appointed Lawrence "Larry" Summers as director of his national economic council. Not that he doesn't have the resume – aside from having been chief economist of the World Bank and president of Harvard University, Summers was President Bill Clinton's Treasury Secretary.

"He's a brilliant brother, there's no doubt about that," said West, whose feud with Summers when they were both at Harvard led the high-profile, media-savvy professor to leave for Princeton in 2002. "But when it comes to policy, he supported deregulating of derivatives. That's led us into the mess. [He has] no history whatsoever of commitment to poor people or working people...He's got cozy relations with Wall Street, and right now Wall Street does not deserve any kind of privileged treatment. The greed has been running amok for a long time, has led the country, and significant parts of the world into disastrous circumstances, you see? So I can't for the life of me conceive why Barack Obama would be so seduced by the braininess of a Larry Summers."

Hear more of what West had to say about Obama's chief economic advisor, and why he says the relationship will backfire on the president, in the video above.


Clearly there's no love lost between West and the former president of Harvard. Summers wrongly accused West of grade inflation and canceling classes to campaign for then-presidential candidate Bill Bradley, according to West's memoir, 'Brother West: Living and Loving Out Loud.' West also says Summers told him, "You have to cease making rap albums that are an embarrassment to Harvard."

To learn more about the feud between West and Summers, and more about West's remarkable life, check out 'Brother West: Living and Loving Out Loud.' It was written with David Ritz and published by the SmileyBooks imprint of Hay House.

For an insight into the relationship between Summers and the current economic meltdown, watch the Frontline documentary, 'The Warning,' online.


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