The troublemakers over at Clusterstock say that Wall St. retread Sallie Krawcheck was put in charge of what is left Merrill Lynch by Ken Lewis as part of a public relations stunt.

John Carney reports that Anne Finucane, the chief marketing officer and keeper of BofA’s image, told Lewis that hiring a woman for the job would look good, both with the public and with federal regulators.

This comports with the long-running BofA story line that it was dirty, bad ML that was responsible for the worst of the financial excess, and prim and proper BofA down in little, old Charlotte is trying to fix the mess. Recall the John Thain misdirection play which made him the focus of evil in the universe, least with local rubes covering BofA.

Running off old ML execs and bringing “fresh” untainted names works with that just fine.