Wednesday, September 19, 2007

Yeah, and there was that other thing, too.


Blogging Tory "Gay and Right" Fred is seriously miffed that former Harvard University president Larry Summers was invited, then uninvited, to be a keynote speaker at a dinner for the UC Board of Regents. And what exactly was Summers' sin?

Well, see, all the evidence indicates that he's kind of sexist. And kind of a bigot. And that sort of thing just doesn't play well at some dinner parties, know what I'm sayin'? But that's not the best part.

See, one would think that, if Fred gets this bent out of shape over simply being dissed over a dinner party, he'd be outraged -- absolutely livid, I tell you -- over what happened to Duke academic Erwin Chemerinsky, who had his hiring as the new dean at the UC Irvine law school pulled because he was too liberal, only to have it given back due to overwhelming protest.

See the difference? Summers loses out on an evening of free food because he's a sexist pig: Fred howls. Chemerinsky is the target of a concerted attack by the right to strip him of his deanship, solely because he's a vocal defender of civil liberties? Well, do I really need to explain how much that caused Fred any lack of sleep? Yeah, about that much.

I need to find some smarter conservatives to pick on. This is getting seriously boring.

BY THE WAY, about that nefarious liberal academic bias you keep hearing so much about? Well, bite me.

(For those of you who aren't quite sure who David Horowitz is, there are only two things you need to know about him:

  • He is the primary source of 98% of the accusations that there is a nefarious liberal academic bias, and

  • He is a hideous, sleazy, pathological liar about everything.

I'm glad I could clear that up for you.)

5 comments:

That guy said...

"some smarter conservatives to pick on"

Good luck with that!

rabbit said...

There's not much evidence that Summers is either sexist or a bigot. Gutless maybe.

He gave a talk where he wondered whether there were inherent differences in the way men and women think.

Feminists called Summers all sorts of names and demanded apologies and his resignation. For them, this was a question that could not even be asked.

Summers should have responded that such questions can never be out of bounds for academics. Instead he apologized (numerous times) and threw millions of Harvard dollars at womens programs. Despite, or perhaps because, of his utter spinelessness, Summers was eventually forced to resign.

CC, if you think Fred is defending a fellow conservative, you are wrong. Summers is liberal and served under Clinton.

Ti-Guy said...

"I need to find some smarter conservatives to pick on. This is getting seriously boring."

The smart ones are all evil liars, so there's really nothing else.

Larry Moran said...

Your accusation against Larry Summers is way out of line. The real situation is much more complex than you imply.

CC said...

Yes, apparently, I was a bit harsh on Larry Summers, but my original point still stands -- it's more than a little inconsistent to leap to Summers' defense after having given Chemerinsky's situation a complete pass.

But it's not like that should surprise anyone anymore.