Two things that are true:

--The discussion of Larry Summers leaving his job as director of the White House Economic Council often failed to provide any sense of progressive criticism of his tenure, or of White House policy. (Republican criticism was well-represented, though.)

--The Washington Post's "Topic A" op-ed features are often terrible.

On Sunday (9/26/10) it all came together, with a Post "Topic A" discussion about the performance of Obama's economic team.

The Post got responses from former Bush economic adviser N. Gregory Mankiw and McCain economics adviser Douglas Holtz-Eakin, who are both unsurprisingly critical. The paper also sought comment from Dino Kos, a "managing director at Portales Partners LLC" who argued the stimulus was ill-conceived and declared that the "government has made commitments--especially Social Security and healthcare--that cannot and, ultimately, will not be fulfilled. Future governments will default on those promises one way or the other."

Diane Lim Rogers of the center-right Concord Coalition stressed the need to "start living within our means." Author Sebastian Mallaby says the Obama team "has gotten the big calls right." He does have his criticisms, though: "The president's rhetoric, if not his policy, has sometimes been excessively tough on business, contributing to nervousness in corporate boardrooms. There can be no durable recovery until businesses start to invest, so beating up on captains of industry may be good short-term politics but is lousy economic strategy."

And Moody's economist Mark Zandi--who has recently advised Republicans and Democrats--has a similar take, writing that the White House team "deserves high praise."

But where are the voices who would criticize the White House record from the left? It seems as if that point of view can't get much of an airing, in the Post or elsewhere.

The roundtable on Sunday's Meet the Press (2/1/09) sure didn't look promising: Republican flat tax enthusiast Steve Forbes, former McCain economic adviser Mark Zandi and CNBC reporter Erin Burnett. It was Burnett, though, who delivered a head-scratching defense of the $18 billion bonuses recently doled out at Wall Street firms (many of which are still standing thanks only to the government's multi-billion dollar TARP bailout).

As Burnett explained, the populist anger was misplaced (see bold):

BURNETT: I understand the outrage, and you understand the populism. There are, though--well, how should we say this? The taxpayer money is not being used to pay the bonuses. I think people could understand if you work for a company--right? If the three us worked for a company, your guests, and I lost $10 billion but Steve [Forbes] over there, he made a billion dollars. So overall the company actually loses money, but Steve went and did his very darndest for that company and he made money. So should he be paid for his work? That's essentially what we're talking about here. And reasonable people could argue about this, but many reasonable people would conclude, yes, he should be paid for that. And I think, David, you've raised a fair point, which is maybe it's the whole use of the word "bonus."

GREGORY: Mm-hmm.

BURNETT: If you explained to people this is how they are compensated, that might make a difference. But there is also a fundamental misunderstanding. The taxpayer money isn't being taken and paid out in the form of bonuses. It goes in a, a separate pool, shall we say, a separate account for banks. So maybe people don't care about that distinction, but it is there.

Really? That's just a "separate pool"  money? As Adam Green and Media Matters point out, that sure doesn't seem to be the case. The original New York Times report (1/29/09) and several others rounded up by Media Matters quote several experts making exactly the opposite point-- that without the bailout funds, bonuses would have been much lower.

This isn't the first time Burnett's raised some eyebrows; she once warned that critics of China should go easy, since safe food and lead-free toys are likely to cost more. And a Today show report she did cheering the soaring Dow and the lamenting the tax burden of the super-wealthy earned her an "attagirl" from Rush Limbaugh.