The debate over who should be the next Fed chair didn’t let up much over the weekend, which is primarily a function of Larry Summers’ recent status as the main contender; everything Summers touches gets hot-hot-hot.

On Saturday the Journal ran with a piece pointing out the conflicts of interest Summers has because of his buckraking (something he once said he would not do)—”Summers Faces Hit Over Potential Nod Because of His Wall Street Ties.”

The Journal reports that not only has Summers been working with hedge fund D.E. Shaw, investment group Andreesen Horowitz and wealth management firm Alliance Partners, he has also been consulting for Nasdaq and Citigroup (Bob Rubin’s old firm, surprise, surprise).

The recent financial crisis has focused attention on the Fed’s role—and shortcomings—as a financial regulator. The Fed has more direct oversight of and authority over big banks, including Citi, than any other regulator. Mr. Summers’s work for Citigroup is almost certain to be cited by critics suspicious of him for his advocacy of financial deregulation during his years in the Clinton administration, where he served as Treasury secretary. Some critics say the recent financial crisis had its roots in deregulatory efforts.

In an editorial today the Journal slams both Summers and competitor Janet Yellen, the latter on the basis of her support from advocates who think Obama should choose a woman. This is slightly unfair, of course, as no one said a word about gender until Summers’ name started getting talked up, and Yellen’s qualifications are unassailable. And the Journal takes aim at Summers again.

Citibankers will consider it a bargain if their man ends up running the agency with primary responsibility for regulating Citigroup. In the Dodd-Frank world, too-big-to-fail banks are public utilities that resist regulatory advice at their peril. If he returns to the heights of financial political power, Mr. Summers wouldn’t forget who helped him build a comfortable nest egg.

This is absolutely true. But it’s also true that Summers wouldn’t need to be on Citigroup’s payroll to be looking out for its interests. The Bob Rubin connection alone would suffice, but the truth is, Summers has been a shill for Wall Street dating back to the financial crises of the 1990s, when he and Rubin, at Treasury, consistently fought to get irresponsible banks repaid at the expense of millions of struggling and unemployed people.

Still, the Journal’s repeated attention to this theme is significant; the White House now knows that it does not have the Journal’s support for the choice of Summers.

Perhaps the smartest writing I’ve seen about Summers and the Fed appeared in Politico over the weekend. Economics blogger Mike Konczal details in this piece exactly what the Fed does and why that makes Summers the precise wrong choice.

The next chair of the Federal Open Market Committee, as the powerful body that controls the U.S. money supply is formally known, will face three major issues during his or her tenure. The first, and most urgent, is to determine how to navigate our economy out of the current doldrums. The second is to decide how aggressively to enforce the new set of financial reform rules that emerged from the financial crisis. And the third, crucially, is to find a way to rebuild monetary policy and the Fed so that the United States won’t see a repeat of the current crisis. Yellen is clearly the superior candidate on all three counts.

Konczal is particularly good on the Fed’s role in financial regulation and why its importance there should disqualify Summers.

The last responsibility of the next chair will be how to enforce the new rules of the financial sector. Summers’s role in the financial deregulation of the 1990s [is] widely known, as are his dismissals, as late as 2005, of those who thought financial innovation could increase the risks of the financial sector. But Summers has also been on the wrong side of many key debates more recently: He didn’t support a bankruptcy solution for the U.S. foreclosure crisis (after saying he’d fight for it to get Congress to vote for the second round of TARP). He was reportedly against including a ban on hedge fund like trading at our commercial banks — the Volcker Rule — during financial reform. Meanwhile, as finance blogger Bill McBride notes, Yellen was making the correct calls on the housing bubble and its potential damage.

Konczal gives a terrific hypothetical: The Fed will soon be deciding, singlehandedly and in private, whether “financial firms like Goldman Sachs can have large, extensive businesses in physical commodities such as aluminum.” (You will remember that the Times just found out that Goldman has been manipulating the aluminum market, costing consumers billions of dollars annually.)

Given Summers’ snuggly ties with Wall Street, which way do you think he’d lean?

The question, of course, is whether the President cares about all this anti-Summers backlash. One argument suggests that he does—why else float Summers as a trial balloon, if not to see what the reaction might be? The other argument is that the President wants to anticipate the reaction so that when he picks Obama, the White House knows how to spin the pick.

Either way, it’s the kind of situation where you really do think that the President has some serious blind spots…