Obama Rejects Speculation Summers Has Fed ‘Inside Track’

President Barack Obama rejected the notion that Lawrence Summers is the front-runner to replace Federal Reserve Chairmen Ben S. Bernanke, explaining that he has defended his former National Economic Council director as an act of loyalty.

“The perception that Mr. Summers might have an inside track simply had to do with a bunch of attacks that I was hearing on Mr. Summers pre-emptively, which is sort of a standard Washington exercise that I don’t like,” Obama said at a White House news conference yesterday. “I tend to defend folks who I think have done a good job and don’t deserve attacks.”