Shots In The Dark

More stories about how Bush U.N.-nominee John Bolton terrorized people who disagreed with his opinions or refused to give him the intelligence estimates he wanted to push his ideological agenda.

The Bolton nomination is dead. The only question is whether President Bush decides that it's in his political best interest to force a vote—which he'd lose—or whether he withdraws the nomination early next week. My guess: The Republicans don't really want to have to vote for this guy, who gives every indication of being a complete crackpot. They'll pressure the President to avoid a vote, so that they don't have to go on the record with their support or opposition. Bush will withdraw the nomination.

I think there's a larger point here besides the fact that Bolton is, apparently, a jerk. Despite the fact that the war on Iraq may yet turn out to be a success, Americans don't want unilateralism. We still think diplomacy is important, and yes, even the United Nations. In fact, we may think that even more now than we did before the Iraq war, and the realization that those much-touted weapons of mass destruction don't exist.....

Another point: Since Bolton was obviously Dick Cheney's guy, one has to wonder where else Cheney is driving Administration policy...

Writing in the Jewish World Review, First Amendment advocate Nat Hentoff makes the case for Summers as a victim of political correctness. Hentoff tells the story of a high schooler in Yakima, Washington, who defended Summers.

Key quote: "President Summers offered no conclusions [at the NBER conference]. He wanted these intellectuals to do what they're supposed to do — think. But his challenge resulted — as high-schooler Toop wrote — in "the political correctness squad (rushing) upon him like a pack of bloodthirsty dingos that just smelled baby."

I've written before that I don't think this controversy had anything to do with free speech—or political correctness, for that matter—but in the interests of balance, I post the article for your consideration.

And also because I love that simile—"a pack of bloodthirsty dingos that just smelled baby." Fantastic. Rush Limbaugh, your successor has just entered the building.

Microsoft caves in to bigotry. So disappointing.

I've long thought that the key to Summers' fate lies in the hands of Harvard donors. If a significant percentage of them stop giving, his goose is cooked. But if they continue to give—or actually increase their contributions—his position is stable, and he can work to shore up his internal support.

Now I hear that the Corporation has privately acknowledged that Summers needs to be "built up" before he can embark on a major, public capital campaign, a process that, the Corporation thinks, could take two years.

Moreover, a recent Summers visit with several Silicon Alley billionaires left the billionaires "visibly unimpressed"...

Crimson columnist Stephen W. Stromberg has a smart take on the latest Summers controversy, his remarks on Native Americans and genocide. Like me, Stromberg finds the latest remarks less objectionable on paper than would merit the angry reactions they have prompted. I think it has something to do Summers' high-handed manner of speech; Stromberg argues that people are just so irritated with Summers now, they're quick to be offended.

(A possible flaw in this argument: the Native American conference took place last September, and participants were ticked off at the time.)

Stromberg suggests that one solution is for Summers and Mass. Hall to be more forthcoming with information generally.

Key quote: "Releasing everything—meeting notes, administrative documents, memos, you name it—isn't just in the best interests of the Harvard community, but of the president's office, too. And this doesn't just apply to potential scandals. Students and Faculty often feel out of the loop in Allston decision-making, the curricular review, shakeups in administration. ...They complain that communication between Mass Hall and the rest of the University community often comes in the form of press releases...."

It's a smart piece and well-worth reading.

And if I may add my two cents: Summers should make it a policy not to speak to journalists off the record or on background. It would befit his office, and diminish the air of secrecy and manipulation that surrounds his presidency.

I have no idea if this is a public event, but if it isn't...well, I couldn't sneak in, because I'm a reporter, and that's frowned upon for us. But if I were you, I would. It should be fascinating....a conversation about the brain that's really a conversation about Larry Summers.

<A Conversation with Steven Pinker and Elizabeth Spelke

Friday, April 22
4:00 pm
Science Center B

The speakers will discuss research on mind, brain, and behavior that
may be relevant to gender disparities in the sciences, including the
studies of bias, discrimination, and innate and acquired differences
between the sexes.

Sponsored by Harvard University - Mind/Brain/Behavior>>

Wish I could be there...but I'm helping some friends move, and postings may be affected today.

Posted by: richard / 12:27 AM   

This story in The Record of New Jersey compares Larry Summers to Princeton president Shirley Tighman. Less than favorably.

Key quote: "If the president of Harvard thinks women are innately inferior, how far have we come? The reassuring answer from the president of Princeton: We've not only come a long way, but the young women coming after us will go a whole lot farther."

But here's the real problem. The piece is headlined: "Princeton to Harvard: Girls Rule."

I'd guess at least one newspaper in every state in the country has done a similar piece. The common theme: Despite what Larry Summers might say, girls in our state are good at science, and don't care if the president of Harvard thinks otherwise

This is obviously a caricature of what Summers said, but that's the way the media works. The problem for Summers—and for Harvard—is that the caricature is taking root.

An interesting side note from the Globe article: Summers' spokesman mentions that Summers was basing his statements about Native Americans on a number of sources he'd read, including Jared Diamond's "Guns, Germs and Steel" and an article in Commentary magazine.

(Incidentally, we don't know who Summers' spokesman is, because as with erstwhile presidential flack Lucie McNeil, Summers apparently doesn't want the person quoted by name. Thus we have the curious phenomenon of a university president who won't speak to the press on the record and will only allow his spokesman to be identified as his "spokesman." Transparency, anyone?)

But on to the main point.... This isn't the first time Summers has gotten in trouble for delivering remarks to an academic audience based on his reading of a popular book. His women-in-science comments were drawn from Steven Pinker's book, "The Blank Slate."

Why is this important? Well, for one thing, because Summers delivers these remarks with a posture of omniscience, but he's generally speaking to people who've written more specialized materials than these popular works. That's a recipe for trouble.

Summers clearly has an affinity for popular tomes. Why? Perhaps he's playing catch-up after a decade away from academia in Washington. Or, as some Harvardians suspect, perhaps he disdains humanities-related scholarship that isn't popular. If it's not read by a wider audience, Summers isn't interested.

That could be one reason why Summers has such an affinity for celebrity academics like Pinker, Luke Menand, Michael Ignatieff, Samantha Power, Malcolm Gladwell, et al. He doesn't see the point of intellectuals who don't reach a broader, "real world" audience. Not a humanist himself, and uncomfortable with the humanities, he depends on data to evaluate works in the humanities. In this case, the data appear to be sales figures.

Marcella Bombardieri in the Globe picks up on the latest Larry Summers controversy, his remarks at a conference on Native American studies.

Key quote: "The new controversy is another distraction for Summers at a time when many professors say the debate over his leadership, which culminated in a vote of no confidence last month, has paralyzed the administration. However, several critics and supporters of Summers alike said yesterday that they did not think the speech about Native Americans would significantly alter the campus discussion about the president, since most people's opinions about Summers are already hardened."

That last line about hardened opinions is particularly important, since it goes to the question of whether Summers can resuscitate his presidency. The worst of the women-in-science controversy may be past. But the lines of division are so deeply plowed, it's hard to see how Summers can smooth them over. Unless, perhaps, you are willing to take a long-term view--say, five to seven years. But how long is the Harvard Corporation going to allow the University's agenda to lie fallow (sorry, I'll stop now) so that Larry Summers can attempt to refurbish his reputation?

And that scenario assumes that no new controversy erupts, which would be an assumption based more on wishful thinking than past precedent.

I've been meaning to write about Skip Gates' decision to step down as chairman of the African and African-American Studies department. I don't think there's any deep inner meaning; Gates has been chair for a long time, and he really doesn't need the job to maintain his exalted position in the world of academia. Plus, being a chair can be a huge drain on time and energy.

More telling is how widely Gates' decision was covered—from the New York Times to the Seattle Post-Intelligencer. Under normal circumstances, a decision to resign a department chair hardly merits newspaper coverage. Two factors are involved here. One, Gates' own celebrity status. And two, newspapers looking for any hint of instability at Harvard. Everything related to Summers is hot, hot, hot....

Here's a more important story: Gates is now becoming the chair of the Pulitzer Prize committee. The position conveys enormous cultural power. Just one example: Even more than usual, one must now read every mention of Gates in the New York Times with deep skepticism.
There's no way the paper can ever be objective about the chair of the Pulitzer board....

So the new pope is a 78-year-old former member of the Hitler Youth who believes that Catholicism is the "true" religion and all other faiths are deficient. According to the Times, the newly-named Benedict XVI "has repeatedly condemned religious pluralism" and has argued that concern about child molestation by priests "is intentional, manipulated, that there is a desire to discredit the church."

Ratzinger has also reinforced the ban on women priests and attacked feminism as ignoring biological differences. He's anti-gay, anti-birth control, anti-stem cell research....

Well...this should be interesting. Without knowing, of course, how Ratzinger's papacy will turn out, let me just suggest that secretive selection processes have not served the world's iconic instititutions well in recent years.

Which reminds me of John Bolton....but that's a blog entry for another time....

Here's InsideHigherEd.com's take on the Summers talk regarding Native Americans.

Just so everyone can keep track, let's sum up whom exactly Larry Summers has offended during his four years as president of Harvard.

1) African-Americans. (The Cornel West incident, stated doubts about affirmative action.)
2) Latinos. (Rejecting calls for a Latino studies department, Summers explained that the reason there was an African-American studies department—but shouldn't be a Latino studies department—was because of the importance of the Civil War.)
3) Muslims. (Summers argued that people who felt Harvard should divest from Israel over human rights issues were anti-Semitic; he treated Muslim commencement speaker Zayed Yasin with contempt.)
4) Native Americans. (See above.)
5) Asians. (Summers repeatedly recounted an inaccurate story about the number of teenage prostitutes in Seoul, South Korea, which suggested that there were more teenage prostitutes in Seoul than there were teenager girls.)
6) Women. (The women in science remarks, among other things.)
7) Gays. (Summers repeatedly called for the return of ROTC to campus, despite the military's anti-gay discrimination; he refused to fight enforcement of the Solomon Amendment, which mandated military recruiting on campuses receiving federal monies, on the grounds that the issue of anti-gay discrimination was not important enough to merit jeopardizing federal dollars.)


The only major ethnic group or other constituency at Harvard that Summers has not insulted or offended in some way, as far as I can tell, is his own—white Jewish men. Which helps to explain some of his troubles. Politicians—and the president of Harvard has to be a politician—are supposed to broaden their base of support by reaching out to different constituencies, rather than pissing them off.

It continues to fascinate me that the members of the Harvard Corporation saw Summers as the man who could unite and lead this university....

Larry Summers has released a transcript of remarks he made at a September 2004 conference on Native American studies at Harvard. Those remarks became an issue when the Washington Post profile of Summers (mentioned below) quoted scholars who'd been present saying they were offended by the president's remarks at the event. At the time, the Crimson had heard rumors that Summers had angered attendees, but—shock!—his ever-helpful press secretary, Lucie McNeil, had refused to release a transcript. Perhaps the remarks were off the record.

Here's a key quote from the Crimson write-up:

"Even seven months after the conference, several scholars who attended the event are still incensed by the president’s remarks.

Michael Yellow Bird, director of the Center for Indigenous Nations Studies at the University of Kansas, said that Summers’ remarks were “really, really insulting.”

Tara Browner, associate professor of ethnomusicology and American Indian studies at UCLA, wrote in an e-mail to The Crimson Sunday that she and several other attendees were “appalled” by Summers’ statements."

But the Crimson's reportage of the transcript actually makes things out to be more complicated. It doesn't seem that Summers said anything factually incorrect. He said that more Native Americans died from diseases carried by Europeans than in combat, and there was no conscious plan to commit genocide. Some of the scholars present thought Summers was presenting a whitewashed view of history, apologizing for colonialism.

What's really going on here? It's the difference, I think, between the way Summers' words read on paper, and how they sound when he delivers them. It's a question of style. When Summers speaks in public, he often comes across as arrogant, patronizing, impatient, dismissive. Even if what he's saying is, on paper, factually correct and largely unobjectionable.

I've seen Summers stride into a conference, surrounded by worshipful aides. running late as usual, and instantly start telling all the scholars in the field what the real truth is, and what they should be working on. (I wasn't at the NBER conference in January, but that's exactly what happened then too.)

Summers' body language, his tone of voice, the way he breezes in and out—everything reads wrong. Even when what he says is essentially smart or even sympathetic. He's an arrogant man. And that's not going to change. The question is whether it helps his presidency more than it hurts it.

Stephanie Green, a former researcher for Star magazine, has won a lawsuit filed against her by American Media Inc., which was attempting to stop Green from publishing a novel inspired by her days working for the tabloid. (Star is owned by AMI.) The suits at AMI alleged that they needed to screen a copy of the manuscript in order to determine whether Green had violated confidentiality and "non-disparagement" clauses in her employment contract. The judge ruled that AMI didn't have cause to sue; AMI says it plans an appeal.

Here's what the case is really about: Green is hinting (pretty explicitly) that her book is based on infamous Star editor Bonnie Fuller, a legendary editorial tyrant who has dragged down the quality—and pumped up the sales—of every magazine she's ever worked for (and probably some she hasn't). AMI wants to protect its celebrity editor.

Let us consider some of the ironies in this situation.

First, you have a media company suing to prevent the publication of a novel.

Second, the media company in question happens to be the obtainer and purveyor of celebrity dirt which, one hopes, is far juicier than anything one could write about a mere editor.

And third, if a celebrity lawyer insisted upon pre-publication review of an article about his/her client, American Media would presumably tell that lawyer where to go.

But never mind all this. More important than irony, this is another example of the invidious proliferation of confidentiality agreements in the world of business and media. It's well-known that I've had my own troubles with such agreements, and I've argued in print that they're tools employed by the rich and powerful to intimidate and silence the less rich and less powerful. Many of these agreements are simply intended to scare people out of exercising their First Amendment rights. Imagine if Microsoft created computer viruses aimed at annihilating shareware.

Remember—American Media sued to stop this woman from writing a work of fiction. Apparently they thought it would contain much truth. (Which is another irony, because most people would say that American Media publishes non-fiction, little of which is true. )

That the book in question isn't substantively important doesn't matter. The fact that a media company sued a writer to stop her from writing a novel should alarm every one who values a free press. AMI should drop its appeal, and Green should go ahead and sell her book.

House majority leader Tom DeLay continues and intensifies his attack upon the federal judiciary—and this time he's ratched it up a notch. Appearing on Fox News on Tuesday night, DeLay specifically criticized Supreme Court justice Anthony Kennedy, saying that it was "outrageous" that Kennedy sometimes considered international law during deliberations and conducted research on the Internet.

Make no mistake: What we are watching here is the death spiral of a politician whose self-destruction has, in some sense, always seemed inevitable. The question is only how much damage he will do on his way out the door.....

It is time for some senior Republicans in the House and Senate to come knocking on DeLay's door and say, "Tom...Tom....it's time to go home now. Time to go home."

And it is time for some Democrats to say in public that President Bush needs to disavow--also in public—these attacks upon the separation of the branches of government. If only to preserve his party's chances for retaining the House in 2006, Bush has to jettison DeLay.

On a side note, what's so awful about doing research on the Internet? I hear there's some good stuff on there......

Helis the beluga whale has escaped the Delaware River and returned to the Atlantic. This is, of course, a great relief to whale lovers everywhere. One can only hope that Helis has not suffered too greatly from his exposure to any water anywhere near New Jersey.....

The Crimson editorializes about the case of Laurence Tribe, just reprimanded but not punished by Harvard for committing plagiarism. Pertinent quote: "In a joint statement issued Thursday by President Summers and Harvard Law School Dean Elena Kagan, the University declined to formally punish Tribe in any substantial way. While Tribe has been mildly chastised for the academic dishonestly, the statement, coming months after the plagiarism was publicly acknowledged, amounts to little more than a slap on the wrist."

That, says the Crimson, constitutes a double standard in the treatment of professors versus that of students, who would surely receive a much harsher punishment had they committed the same act of plagiarism.

Well, yes. Absolutely true. But there's another double standard: the difference between the way Larry Summers treats professors he likes, and the way he treats those he doesn't. Laurence Tribe commits the gravest academic sin possible, and is "mildly chastised." But Cornel West, who was guilty only of being too popular with the wrong people, received a much harsher sentence—a nasty dressing-down, and the clear signal that he was unwelcome at Harvard.

That's not the only instance of the double standard. Summers has aligned Harvard firmly in support of scandal-tarred economist Andre Schleiffer, accused of investing in Russian stocks while he was under contract from the US government to help rebuild the Russian economy. (Boston Globe columnist David Warsh has written smartly and with some exasperation about Harvard's bizarre defense of Schleiffer.) Is it any coincidence that Schleiffer is a longtime friend and intellectual partner of Summers?

Tribe, meanwhile, co-wrote a New York Times op-ed on affirmative action with Summers that brought the president reams of good publicity. Months later, Summers named him to the position of University Professor, the most exalted position a professor can attain at Harvard. Apparently, once you've reached that status, you can get away with anything...as long as you've scratched the president's back first.

It's this kind of behavior that has turned so much of the Harvard community against Summers—the sense that he plays favorites and devalues academic integrity in order to stack the university's highest positions with cronies....

I can't say too much about Ann Coulter, and no, I don't mean it that way. I mean, I literally can't say too much about Ann Coulter, because I have so many conflict of interests with her that you can't trust a thing I would say, if I did say anything. Let's see: I edited a column she wrote for George. We share the same literary agent. Plus, I like her. In person, she's really quite lovely. Back at George, you couldn't have asked for a more pleasant person to work with, or a more enthusiastic supporter of the magazine. And because of those things, I only share my political differences with her...with her.

I will publicly marvel, though, at Ann's genius for publicity. Here she is, on the cover of this week's Time magazine. The timing is a little weird, since Ann doesn't have a new book out; the piece is an "evergreen," meaning it's always timely (enough), and can be held for a slow news week. Nonetheless, she's on the cover of Time! I can't imagine how much that's worth to Ann in terms of book sales, speaking engagements, the next book contract, etc. Half a million dollars? A million?

But instead of reacting with humility and/or self-consciousness, as most writers would, Ann is complaining that the cover photo is unflattering, and that this is evidence of liberal bias in the media. It's a brilliant way of assuring her conservative base that she hasn't sold out, hasn't gone mainstream...that she can work with the MSM, and then turn around and dis it. That is truly having your cake and eating it too.

Of course, some liberal critics think she ought to be pleased with the cover, given its alleged original appearance....

Meanwhile, graduate students at Yale and Columbia are on strike to pressure those universities to grant them union status. As a former grad student, I have some sympathy: being a graduate student is a miserable existence, filled with loneliness, isolation and poverty just as your peers from college are starting to pull down the big bucks. Universities need to improve this situation as best they can, because people do have other choices, and there are lots of careers that are just as fulfilling as becoming a professor, with better quality of life.

At the same time, I'm not convinced that unionizing is the way to go. Unions, of course, have their own issues that grad students—many of whom, shall we say, haven't had a lot of experience with union work—may not wish to acknowledge, or even know about. But more than that, it suggests a way of thinking about graduate school as a semi-permanent state of existence. (I knew plenty of grad students who seemed quite content to whittle away a decade or so working on their doctorates.) That's a mistake. Graduate school is something to finish as quickly as possible. It's like a dentist appointment. No matter how comfortable the surroundings, or how potent the anaesthesia, it's still best done with as soon as possible. Wouldn't forming a union only create an incentive to stay in that life limbo for longer than one ought?

The Red Sox have done the right thing and banned season ticket-holder Chris House from Fenway Park. House, you may remember, was the fan who tried to hit Yankee outfielder Gary Sheffield in the face while Sheffield was making a play near the right-field wall. Another charming Red Sox fan then dumped a beer on Sheffield.

Many Red Sox fans are perfectly adequate people. But others are barely human. I love Fenway Park, but too often the fans there are out of control. First there's the charming t-shirts vendors sell to children outside the stadium: "Yankees Suck/Jeter Swallows." Nice. I remember the year when fans in the bleachers started bouncing around blow-up dolls of women...which went on for months, until some female fans complained and the team management finally realized this wasn't funny. Or the early spring game I attended when the temperature was so cold that fans in my section started picking fights just to stay warm. By game's end, at least half a dozen fights had broken out. And this was behind home plate....

The House incident wasn't the first time a Sox fan has attacked a Yankee player. A couple years ago, a Sox groundskeeper picked a fight with pitchers in the Yankee bullpen. The fans thought this was heroic, and the guy became a local hero.

If the Sox didn't take action, sooner or later someone was going to get hurt—either a player would be brutally assaulted, or a fan would get hurt by a player defending himself. It's about time the Sox took action to make sure that Red Sox Nation doesn't become Savage, Primitive, Drunken Idiot Nation. Chris House, wherever he is, should go root for the Boston Bruins....

Writing in The Standard, which bills itself as "China's Business Newspaper," Barbara Kellerman compares the management styles of Howell Raines, Larry Summers, and Ricardo Muti, former musical directorof Las Scala. Well, she doesn't compare them so much as say that they are similar, and that the people below these heavy-handed leaders are more likely to voice their protest than they used to be.

Key quote: "In the past, first-rate editors at The New York Times were not canned for being callous, nor were Harvard presidents humiliated for being abrasive or La Scala conductors brought to their knees for being autocrats. These three leaders were called to account for management styles that until recently were widely considered acceptable or, at least, not the sort of behavior that would cause a mutiny. Their fates are a reflection of the new intolerance for bad leadership that is also affecting corporate boards and international courts."

What's somewhat remarkable about this is that Kellerman gets paid by Harvard; she is the research director of Harvard's Center for Public Leadership and author of Bad Leadership: What It Is, How It Happens, Why It Matters.

The salient fact, of course, is that while at the Times and La Scala bottom-up protest can topple an imperious leader, at Harvard, the only folks who could push Summers out the door are the members of the Corporation...three of whom (out of a possible six, a total of seven, including Summers) he has appointed....

The vomiter—or should I say, "vomiteer"—a student named Matthe Skomarovsky, defends his action in this letter to the Crimson. He points out that he vomited into a "double plastic bag," so no one had to pick up after him. And he argues that recruitment is not an act of free speech, and is therefore disruptable.

Neither of these arguments strikes me as suasive. On the aesthetics of vomiting, Skomarovsky should stick to his guns. If he feels so strongly about the ethics of CIA recruiting, he should insist that his actions were determined to shock and awe—not unlike a monk who sets himself on fire—and that the very point is to provoke people into having a visceral reaction.

On the second point...though I'm not a First Amendment lawyer, somehow I doubt that commercial speech—i.e., recruiting—is not protected by the Constitution.

Well! Apparently there were two protests occurring during the recruiting visit of the CIA and Department of Homeland Security last week at Harvard. One was staged civilly enough outside the Science Center, where the recruitment meeting was held. Another, less civil action took place inside. According to this letter-writer in the Crimson, protesters repeatedly coughed during the recruiters' talks, staged a mock arrest of an ethnic minority, and wore black shrouds to invoke Abu Ghraib. One protester even made himself vomit—which, the correspondent says, couldn't have been very nice for the Harvard maintenance staff.

Since I'm of the mind that the nation's tolerance for torture and unjustified detentions by our military and intelligence apparati has been depressingly high, I think the black shrouds are kind of a nice touch. (When I graduated from Yale, protesters carried small coffins to the front of the Commencement stage, to symbolize the children who died under apartheid. Grim, and somewhat disconnected to the proceedings at hand, but great theater.)

Still...vomiting is a bit much. Shouldn't that be saved for the final clubs?

On a more serious note, there's never any excuse for abridging anyone's right to make themselves heard.