Rats Escaping From the Good Ship White House

Reports indicate that Larry Summers, economic adviser to President Obama, will leave his post to return to a teaching role at Harvard University.

"White House economic adviser Larry Summers will be leaving the administration after the November elections. Summers, as director of the National Economic Council, has been a lead architect of President Barack Obama's economic recovery policies. Those policies, particularly the stimulus, have been attacked from the right as too expensive and from the left as stopping too short."

Summers is at least the third high-profile departure in recent weeks, coming on the heels of the high-profile defection of White House budget director Peter Orszag (who stepped down in July) and White House Council of Economic Advisers Chairwoman, Christina Romer (who left a few weeks ago).

At this point, it's not clear whether Summers is being pushed or whether he jumped. But who cares, really. The fact is, President Obama has done a dreadful job in shepherding the economy, and has clearly received no help from his paid advisers.

The reality is that no amount of shuffling of the deck by President Obama will mitigate the spanking he's going to get from voters in November.