Writing for the conservative thinktank, the American Enterprise Institute, Charles Murray uses Larry Summers’ musings on women and science as a starting point to ask, “Where Are the Female Einsteins?”

He begins by saying, “Last January, Harvard University president Lawrence Summers offered a few mild, off-the-record remarks about innate differences between men and women in their aptitude for high-level science and mathematics, and was treated by Harvard’s faculty as if he were a crank.”

(Italics added.)

An observation here: Ever since Larry Summers’ infamous speech, conservatives have rushed to his defense by pointing out that his remarks were off-the-record.

It’s a curious logic. The stipulation that one’s remarks not be reported—which is what “off the record” means—has no bearing on their merits or demerits. If someone says something incredibly brilliant, it would be no less so for being off the record. And if someone says something incredibly offensive—used the “n” word, for example, or an anti-Semitic term—the fact that it was not intended for publication would not diminish its offensiveness. If a liberal called Rush Limbaugh a fat piece of human waste, and then said, “What are you so upset about, it’s off the record?”, conservatives would rightly disregard that caveat.

Charles Murray is welcome to defend President Summers’ remarks on countless other grounds. That’s a healthy debate. But the fact that they were off the record is irrelevant.