Insiders say that Mr. Geithner would counter that nationalizing banks might sound appealing politically but where would the government get the legions of bank managers it would need? And what would be the exit strategy?

In the interview, Mr. Summers denied that he favored nationalizing banks but acknowledged that he explored the idea so that the president had all options. At the time, the Treasury and the Fed were conducting "stress tests" of the big banks' books, and it was not clear that some banks would be judged viable.

Perhaps, I'm too cynical or have spent too much time observing office politics, but for the life of me, this sounds like one of the more successful (and simple) office strategies I've witnessed within the corporate arena. For instance, if someone floats a terrible business proposal and everyone else, including one's immediate boss thinks it's the most "pragmatic" solution to a difficult nuanced problem, an experienced employee, with images of inevitable disaster in his or her head, will make it discreetly known to various parties that he or she wasn't completely on board with the idea in the first place, but never actually claimed that it was inevitably doomed to failure or proposed a viable alternative. That way, if the project ends in abject failure, experienced employee will have plausible deniability, leaving the project leader holding the bag alone and thus, somewhat avoiding the shitstorm to follow.

The truth is probably more likely here: The other possibility, hinted at several times in the NYT article, is that Summers is just a more adroit political player -- if he's aligning his interests with anyone, it's Obama's political advisers. Anyone who has dealt or has had friends who have dealt with Summers on a professional basis is already aware and somewhat in awe of his survival skills. The most likely explanation for this new bit of information could be more about covering Summers' ass than revealing the truth behind any rivalries within the Obama adminstration. (The question isn't "why was this written and how much truth is there to this?" but rather "why now?") Anyone with any truly alternative economic proposals have been frozen out of the conversation a long time ago. Ask Volcker and any of the other members of the President's Economic Recovery Advisory Board.

Journalists need to keep digging deeper including the fine journalist Jackie Calmes: 600,000 jobs, if created, don't add net jobs because they don't compensate for the earlier job losses from the September collapse until April.

The real issue is when is the next stimulus package coming. It has to be sooner than later. That's where the push and shove has to come on Obama and from Obama. It needs acceleration.