Thursday, April 23, 2009

A Summers Nap

Be sure to read the part in bold.

Larry Summers falls asleep during Obama’s meeting with credit card executives.

Today, President Obama met with credit card industry officials at the White House. After the meeting, he pledged to push for a law that would offer "strong and reliable" protections for credit card users in the United States. He called the session with the industry executives "open and productive conversation." However, one person who seemed less than interested in the meeting was White House economic adviser Larry Summers, who fell asleep. From the pool report:

President Obama met with credit card industry officials in the Roosevelt Room. You have a list of who was at the table, with Geithner to Obama's right in the middle of the table and Jarrett to his left. At either end were Summers and Romer. Also in the room seated behind Obama were Chief of Staff Rahm Emanuel and Gene Sperling, who serves as counselor to Geithner. You will soon have Obama's remarks or can see them on TV.

One thing to note is that Summers appeared to be nodding off near the beginning of Obama's remarks. And then he DID nod off, doing the head on the hand and then head falling off the hand thing. Photogs seemed to be having a field day. All other officials in the room appeared fully awake.

summersleep.jpg

http://thinkprogress.org/2009/04/23/summers-sleep/

Hat tip: AC

2 comments:

Anonymous said...

I guess after all the excitement at Harvard (or was it Yale?), Larry finds the cabinet meetings dull, dull, dull.
I believe I'd fall asleep if I had to sit through an Obama-led meeting.
Tarheel Hawkeye

Anonymous said...

I will be charitable (not my usual want) to suggest that perhaps he was not feeling well or may, just maybe, he has putting in long hours on the job and sleep deprivation has caught up with him. Or could it be(since by accounts that one reads he fell that he is much smarter than everyone else in any given room) that he figured he could take a snooze because anyone who spoke really had nothing to contribute that he did not already know or whose plan was not worth the time of day?
Then again, the media does seem to have sort of a love-hate relationship with Summers, so perhaps this was anot like Larry Summers day photo op.
cks