What's the statute of limitations on dumb comments?

There's speculation that Obama might nominate Lawrence Summers as his Treasury Secretary. This is a source of consternation among feminists, because Summers said some dumb things about women's intrinsic abilities when he was president of Harvard back in January of 2005, for which he immediately apologized and led to him leaving Harvard. Hit the link above if you want to see what he said, though it's not really relevant.

Summers is very well qualified for the job of Treasury Secretary, not the least because he has already done the job under Clinton, and by all accounts well. He has also been a member of the Council of Economic Advisers and Chief Economist for the World Bank. In a worldwide financial crisis, he may not be the only guy who could do the job, but it is clear that he would be one of the best choices.

So it makes no sense to me to keep him out of a job where he could arguably benefit not just America, but the world (given our pivotal role in the world economy), because he made some offensive comments almost four years ago. Shouldn't there be an expiration date for the stigma of this sort of thing? And isn't it about time that we got beyond political correctness and petty identity politics, and just picked the best people for jobs?