Mitt Romney. Bleh.
Yup, Romney's running for president all right;
he not only attacks the Kennedy School for its decision to invite Mohammad Khatami to speak, he links that invitation to the same lefties who ousted Larry Summers and didn't want Ronald Reagan to receive an honorary degree at the school's 350th anniversary. Yes! A perfect trifecta of demagoguery. When a Republican starts bashing Harvard, you know he's dreaming of the Oval Office.
The Crimson also has a nice piece about the Khatami speech, which includes these paragraphs:
Martin Peretz, a longtime Harvard lecturer and Cabot House associate, said Khatami is "a front for a despicable dictatorial regime" and that the event would not provide an opportunity to rigorously challenge the former leader. "Why don’t they invite him to a tough seminar?" he said, adding that he believes the often-crowded question-and-answer sessions at the John F. Kennedy Jr. Forum are “bullshit.”
I frequently disagree with Peretz, but I admire and respect his willingness to say exactly what's on his mind.
Plus, Peretz is right; those K-School q-and-a's are pretty soft. Why, I remember going to see Lawrence Summers at just such an event in 2003. For a brief moment during the question-and-answer part of the evening, after only a couple young people had asked things of the new president, it appeared that there would be no further questions. It was on the verge of being embarrassing. So I watched as a Kennedy School employee hastily whispered in the ear of one young man in the crowd, who quickly stood up, made his way to a microphone, and asked something entirely innocuous....
