Maybe Obama read Ron Suskind's controversial book over the weekend, and decided it was time to take control of his presidency and put it on the side of struggling Americans, rather than on the side of super-wealthy Wall Street titans who destroyed the economy, where it's been since Inauguration Day.

It's unlikely the president is finding lessons in "Confidence Men: Wall Street, Washington and the Education of a President"; the White House is pushing back, hard, on Suskind's revelations. The coverage has mostly hyped "shocking" anecdotes about an inexperienced president poorly served by scheming aides and Cabinet members who fought among themselves and frequently ignored the president's own wishes. But the question at the heart of Suskind's book is much more interesting: Who is Barack Obama, and what exactly did he want to do with his presidency?

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On Sunday, as previously noted, the New York Times quoted Tom Watkins, a top business consultant, admitting that corporate education reformers are hoping the recession continues so that nobody notices their scheme to convert public schools into high-tech companies' private profit-making machines.

Two other similarly frank declarations from our political and financial Masters of the Universe provide candid, if brutal, insights into how the elite see the economy and democracy.

First up was Larry Summers, the hedge funder-turned-architect of the Obama administration's economic program. In a little-noticed speech he revealed a reason the Obama administration may not have been nearly as focused on creating American jobs as many had hoped:

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The ostensible reason for this colossal misunderstanding of the current political situation, sourced to anonymous adminstration officials, is that the White House wants "to allay the business community's doubts about administration policies."

This is nonsense. The only way for Obama to "allay" the so-called business community's "doubts" would be to join with Republicans in seeking a repeal of bank and healthcare reform, abandon his efforts to raise taxes on the wealthy, and fire Elizabeth Warren. By the definition currently employed on the opinion pages of the Wall Street Journal, anything to the left of Ayn Rand or Jim DeMint is "anti-business." The bleating from Wall Street executives who feel bullied and demonized only proves one thing: Anything less than their total freedom to pursue profit free of all government restraint is utterly unacceptable -- no matter what the consequences for the country at large.

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Ah, but some pessimists might say, the damage has already been done! Summers protected Wall Street banks from nationalization, held down the size of the stimulus, neutered bank reform and underestimated just how badly the recession would smack the labor market. Now he's leaving just at the exact point when the White House's ability to actually push through an aggressive economic agenda will be severely constrained by likely legislative losses in November. And he won't depart until after the election, which means Obama won't have a chance to appoint a replacement who might get progressive juices flowing in time to make a difference at the ballot box.

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A great study done on this subject, by a notable economist, found: "prominent findings in labor economics is that unemployment insurance and welfare payments are a major contributor to unemployment, and therefore should be scaled back."

By the way, that study is from Lawrence Summers who is the Director for the White House National Economics Council.

That's the same Larry Summers, as the Wall Street Journal loves to point out, who now endorses extending unemployment benefits.

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Depicted as an attempt to deploy Clinton to soothe corporate leaders who are furious at Obama, the Wednesday visit was actually devoted to a mundane subject: the energy efficiency loan guarantee program that Clinton has vainly tried to promote for many months as a source of fresh investment and as many as a million new jobs.

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That would be pretty big news, right? Edward Luce and James Politi at the Financial Times thought so:

The Obama administration made a strong plea to Congress on Monday to grit its teeth and pass a new set of spending measures -- dubbed the "second stimulus" by some economists -- in order to help dig the economy "out of a deep valley."

As Brad Delong informs us, the Washington Post's Dana Milbank saw things differently. In his report on a speech given Monday by Larry Summers to the Johns Hopkins School of Advanced International Studies, "Summers needs to take Explaining Econ 101," the columnist complained about "a lot of econo-speak that could only baffle Americans worried about finding or keeping a job."

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Maybe it's because Congress is out of session and it is exceedingly difficult to find new and interesting things to say about financial reform that will sate the hunger of the blog-reading masses. Or maybe "Larry Summers" is just a potent keyword for search engine-optimized content delivery. But everyone's got a theory:

Fox Business News' Charlie Gasparino kicked off the gossip on March 26 when he reported that Summers "has been telling associates that he may be looking to leave the administration." Why? Because, according to some unnamed Wall Street executives, he is "unhappy" in his job. The Atlantic's Marc Ambinder followed up on Tuesday with the news that "the big rumor was that Rahm Emanuel himself was making a secret list of people who might be potential replacements for Summers," but concluded that he wasn't about to leave, because he's got a lot of stuff on his plate, like riding "herd over the administration's huge infrastructure renewal program."

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TRICK QUESTION: Is the recession over?

SHOT -- Larry Summers, on "This Week": "Today, everybody agrees that the recession is over, and the question is what the pace of the expansion is going to be."

CHASER -- Christina Romer, on "Meet the Press": "Of course not. For the people on Main Street and throughout this country, they are still suffering."

Technically speaking, Larry Summers is probably correct. Although the National Bureau of Economic Research has yet to declare an "official" end to the recession, most economists believe that it ended earlier this fall or possibly even in the late summer. GDP is growing again (with a large number of analysts predicting a very robust fourth quarter) and a number of other economic indicators have stabilized or moved into positive territory.

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In foreign policy, Obama is just the president the U.S. required after eight disastrous years of George W. Bush. In a remarkably short period of time, the president has done much to revive the reputation of the U.S. among its allies and enemies alike. No American president since John F. Kennedy has combined charisma with the ability to inspire people around the world with visions like Obama's call for the ultimate eradication of nuclear weapons.

And talk has been joined with action. Quietly and undramatically, but thoroughly and systematically, the president has repudiated one Bush-era policy after another. The Bush administration was arrogant and unilateral. The Obama administration is modest and multilateral. The new president has signaled a willingness to engage Iran, partly lifted the ban on the travel of Americans to Cuba and, to the horror of the American right, has shaken hands with Hugo Chavez.

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On the one hand, there is the juvenile posturing of the CODEPINK protesters, who did everything but throw a cream pie at Summers. It's the left-wing equivalent of Rick Santelli's tea parties, and just about as useful in moving forward the national debate over economic policy.

But then there's the equally sickening amused stance of patrician irony displayed by Summers and his moderator, underscored by approving applause from the audience after one CODEPINK provocateur starts screaming about Summers $5.2 million salary last year. It displays a gross insensitivity to how people in this country feel about what Wall Street has accomplished in the last two years to actually express purposeful approval of obscene compensation. And when they burst out in gales of laughter after the moderator asks Summers if he ever regrets returning to Washington, you get the very strong sense that they just don't have a clue as to why anyone might be upset. I may be pushing it by summoning the ghost of Robespierre twice in one week, but it's exactly this kind class insularity that is sure to incite reigns of terror.

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Time to move the blame to where it really belongs. That means no more coddling banks with bailout billions marked "secret." No more allowing their executives lavish bonuses and new corporate jets as if they've won the megalottery and not sent the economy down the tubes. And no more apostles of Wall Street calling the shots.

Which brings us to Larry Summers. Over the weekend, the White House released financial disclosure reports revealing that Summers, director of the National Economic Council, received $5.2 million last year working for a $30 billion hedge fund. He made another $2.7 million in lecture fees, including cash from such recent beneficiaries of taxpayer generosity as Citigroup, J.P. Morgan and Goldman Sachs. The now defunct financial services giant Lehman Brothers handsomely purchased his pearls of wisdom, too.

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One striking statistic suggests the magnitude of the opportunity that is before us in restoring our economy to its potential. Earlier this week, the Dow Jones Industrial Average, adjusting for inflation according to the standard Consumer Price Index, was at the same level as it was in 1966...

While there could be many ways to question this calculation, that the market would be at essentially the same real level as it was in 1966 when there were no PCs, no Internet, no flexible manufacturing, no software industry, and when our workforce was half and our net capital stock was a third of what it is today, may be regarded by some as the sale of the century. For policy-makers, it suggests the magnitude of the gains from restoring sustained economic growth.

By "sale of the century" I think Summers means that right now intrepid investors can grab a piece of the profits that American public companies will eventually earn in a newly expanding economy at bargain basement prices.

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How the World Works is still ready to cut some slack to the new administration. For example, I thought Summers' comment over the weekend to George Stephanopoulos on "This Week," dismissing Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell's explanation of how FDR's policies didn't help get the country out of the Great Depression, was pretty nice.

SUMMERS: Those who presided over the last eight years, the eight years that brought us to the point where we inherit trillions of dollars of deficit, an economy that's collapsing more rapidly than at any time in the last 50 years don't seem to me in a strong position to lecture about the lessons of history.

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Obama's national security team, for instance, includes not a single Iraq war opponent. The president has not only retained George W. Bush's defense secretary, Robert Gates, but also 150 other Bush Pentagon appointees. The only "rivalry" is between those who back increasing the already bloated defense budget by an absurd amount and those who aim to boost it by a ludicrous amount.

Of course, that lockstep uniformity pales in comparison to the White House's economic team -- a squad of corporate lackeys disguised as public servants.

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At the time, Lahart tells us, Rajan, who is now the chief economist of the International Monetary Fund, "came under attack as an antimarket Luddite, wistful for old days of regulation." Among his critics, none other than Lawrence Summers, the former Clinton-era treasury secretary who has been reborn as one of Obama's chief economic advisors.

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Indeed, even before Obama introduced his nominees, he began his remarks by saying, "The news this past week, including this morning’s news about Citigroup, has made it even more clear that we are facing an economic crisis of historic proportions." True, he did add in a positive note about moving forward, but he admitted, "we know this won't be easy, and it won't happen overnight."

"We’ll need to bring together the best minds in America to guide us – and that is what I’ve sought to do in assembling my economic team," Obama said. "I’ve sought leaders who could offer both sound judgment and fresh thinking, both a depth of experience and a wealth of bold new ideas -- and most of all, who share my fundamental belief that we cannot have a thriving Wall Street while Main Street suffers; that in this country, we rise and fall as one nation, as one people."

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Extremely attentive How the World Works readers will recall that I have been paying attention to Geithner since September 2006, when he gave an important speech: "Hedge Funds and Derivatives and Their Implications for the Financial System."

As I wrote then:

Financial panics start when traders and bankers who call in loans or sell off their holdings at the first sign of trouble set off a cascading effect in which everybody else follows their example and the system implodes under the strain. Paradoxically, Geithner appeared to be saying, the more flexible the system, the more quickly such a cascade could happen, and the harder it could be to stop.

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