contrapositive

SPEAKING VOLUMES Noam Scheiber reads The New York Times carefully:

It's a small thing, but this graf from today's Times piece about the Plame investigation is pretty telling:

Among the names being discussed to take some of Mr. Rove's responsibilities should he have to step aside, an outside adviser to the White House said, are Dan Bartlett, currently Mr. Bush's counselor; Ken Mehlman, the chairman of the Republican National Committee; and Robert M. Kimmitt, the deputy Treasury secretary.

The deputy Treasury secretary is a candidate to fill in for Karl Rove? I guess that tells you one of two things. Either the president likes his top political adviser to have an unusually sophisticated grasp of economic policy, or he has a tendency to stick political hands in positions normally reserved for people who are pretty fluent in economics. I think the way to resolve this mystery is to ask yourself whether Bill Clinton would have asked Larry Summers, a former deputy Treasury Secretary, to be his top political adviser.