Despite what Felix Salmon rightly calls “one of the most badly-orchestrated trial balloons I’ve seen in a very long time“—one in which the possibility that the President would nominate Larry Summers to be the next Fed chair provoked dismay, outrage and criticism that is, I think, without precedent for a nomination that hasn’t yet happened—Summers seems likely to be President Obama’s pick to head the Federal Reserve.

In yesterday’s Washington Post, Neil Irwin, who probably covers the Fed better than anyone else, wrote about the White House’s “uneasiness” with Yellen.

She is methodical, not manic. And the prevailing style of the White House insiders advising on the decision leans a bit more toward manic. Geithner, for example, jumps from meeting to meeting, from hearing to phone call, without so much as a set of talking points to work from….

As Salmon points out, this reasoning reeks of sexism; “It’s not that there’s anything specifically wrong with Yellen, we just don’t like her style. ”

Wouldn’t it be ironic if Larry Summers, who lost a job in part because of a furor over his alleged sexism, actually got a job (and one that he wants more, I suspect) because of sexism?

And in today’s Post, Zachary Goldfarb writes on the “behind-the-scenes war” between Summers and Yellen allies to land their candidate the job—a war it sounds like the Summers camp is winning.

As [former Treasury secretary] Geithner has helped Summers navigate the uproar this summer, he also has been consulted by the president on whom the next Fed chairman should be, said a person familiar with the matter. Longtime advisers to Obama such as Jim Messina and Stephanie Cutter, now in the private sector and more skilled in the world of politics and media than Summers, offered to lend a hand to their former colleague.

Meanwhile, allies of Yellen publicized her attributes in the media while privately lobbying on her behalf — often without much success.

(Just as an aside: After years of observation, Tim Geithner seems like a really unpleasant person. Don’t you think?)

The Post points out that Yellen has visited the White House only once in the past two and a half years—which is, frankly, appropriate, given the political independence that is part of the Fed’s mandate—while Summers has crashed 1600 Pennsylvania 15 times.

Uh-oh.

Summers has witnessed the drama this summer from a home on Cape Cod, Mass., where he occasionally has talked to former colleagues between playing golf and tennis. Friends say he has been fairly philosophical about the whole thing — hoping that he is nominated, but not overly tangled up in plotting.

This, of course, is complete bullshit. While Summers may not know everything that’s being done on his behalf, this is clearly so that he can say that he doesn’t know everything being done on his behalf. But he’s clearly supportive of those efforts and doing everything he can to land himself the job.

(One commenter on the Post site points out that, while Yellen is actually at work doing her job, Summers is kicking back in a luxury home paid for by Wall Street millions. True or not, that sentiment is representative of a legitimate criticism of LHS—that he’s indebted to the Street, which has made him a rich man.)

You hope that the President is not so isolated from reality that he fails to see just how big a fight—and how unnecessary a fight—he would provoke by picking Summers.

Kansas senator Pat Roberts, a Republican, just openly announced his hostility to Summers.

“I wouldn’t want Larry Summers to mow my yard,” Roberts said. “He’s terribly controversial and brusque and I don’t think he works well with either side of the aisle, quite frankly.”

All true! But highly unusual of a senator to come out and put things so bluntly.

Yesterday Reuters reported that dozens of professors sent the President a letter urging him not to pick Summers. For what that’s worth. (Were any Harvard profs on it? I can’t find out.)

And then there’s this cartoon, sent to me by a reader (as was the previous link):

0818wasserman-1928

Does Obama see this stuff? If he does, does he care?

As I’ve written before, there’s one lesson that President Obama should take from the fight over the Fed chair, a fight that, so far as I can tell, has never happened before in the history of that institution: Everything Larry Summers touches turns to controversy.

That would be a terrible quality for the chair of the Federal Reserve to possess.