Scary Larry (Sometimes Merry?): Welcome Back to the Show
The Larry Summers saga is one for the ages. Like a young Anakin, this son of economics who rose from the deserts of New Haven now casts his (rotund) shadow on the universe once again. A recent New York Times retrospective depicts Summers and his new position at the helm of the Obama economic team as a phoenix rising from the flames of defeat to save a broken nation. (Star Wars references stop here.) Sure, Summers said some rather distasteful things about women. Yeah, he was never the popular kid at school. But as one fellow president has shown, bullies get jobs whether people shake their hands or not.
Just like in the Simpsons episode where Nelson falls for Lisa, Larry Summers has shown some signs of rehabilitation. (Summers' wife, a professor in Harvard Department of English and American Literature Department, is named Elisa.) As the Times praises the man and the Crimson keeps up their Larry-guard, nobody really knows whether to welcome the man back to powerful office or just cower in the corner of the playground as usual.
So what's the deal with the boy genius turned girl-bashing old man who chased away half of Harvard's Af-Am Department? He's actually a pretty good economist and kind of a decent guy. His John Bates Clark medal, an award up there with the Nobel in the field of economics, should grant the man some credibility. Meanwhile, Summers tossed buckets of Harvard's hefty endowment at a financial aid overhaul program—a move matched by many elite universities—while his predecessor at the Treasury, Robert Rubin of CitiBank failure fame, just made buckets of money. And descriptions like this of Lawrence the Terrible turned Pal from Mass Hall are downright sad:
After his five-year Harvard presidency, Mr. Summers at first seemed to have trouble letting go, colleagues and staff members say. He was on sabbatical but still roamed campus, especially the residential houses and pizza parties of undergraduates, who adored him so much they gave him a standing ovation at the next year’s graduation.
Praise granted, Larry Summers does sort of upset people. No-Drama-Obama surely knows this and anticipates a proper performance when Summers makes the move back inside the Beltway. Read why it might be a match made in heaven after the jump.
According to at least one former colleague of both Barack Obama and Larry Summers, the economic advising might also yield some etiquette lessons. In the Times article, Harvard Law Professor Lawrence Tribe says:
Mr. Obama’s “affability and inclusiveness might help nurture those same qualities in Larry, even though those haven’t been among Larry’s notable strengths.”
The nation might as well call the President-Elect Midas if that happens. Summers' record of alienating colleagues and insulting opponents is the stuff of reality TV. Perhaps in closer quarters, he's a little bit more teddy bear and little less maul. (According to one source, one of Summers' former personal assistants "really seems to like the guy.")
As the national economy folds into itself and the force (oops) steers all citizens to the unemployment office, raw talent seems like a better bet than charisma. Borrowing yet again from another Harvard alum, smiles don't win wars. Or create jobs.
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December 9th, 2008 at 1:06 am
how have you not reported on this yet:
http://dartlog.net/2008/12/dartmouth-professor-uncensored.php
http://dartlog.net/2008/12/reiko-ohnuma-part-2.php
?
December 9th, 2008 at 12:58 pm
All good points, Adam. Gotta leave one thing for the record, though, which the Times continues to treat very sloppily in its reporting. I was in the class of 2005, so spent all my 4 years with Larry. His final flaming descent took place after we left campus. By that time (2006), our ranks of 1600 had been replaced by a notably distinct demographic: the incoming freshman had only known Larry through derivative coverage (ie, republish the Crimson) in the mass media. This gave them a largely distorted view of the blinded cyclops, one that fueled their sense of pity as he tried to collect his sheep. I found it very strange, then, that the Times drew most of its “undergraduate” quotes about Larry from the oddly biased and non-representative Freshman class (the did this on other topics too, such as when they quoted a freshman girl who had NEVER YET ATTENDED A CLASS AT HARVARD for their bizarre account of Ivy League women who do not plan to join the workforce). Had they polled the folks from our year, or sampled beyond the star-struck editorial staff of the Crimson, they would have found a community of undergraduates who were more seasoned AND consistent in their disapproval of Larry.
For the record, I trust Obama and hope that he made the right decision about Summers. The economic advisors are a very academic body, and don’t require a lot of out-of-office public-facing diplomacy. While Larry made my skin crawl as the President of Harvard (I sat through many a speech of his where he somehow managed to insult his audience), I don’t think that he is driven by malice and would be happy to know that he had a job where he could use his powers for good. That’s what all we ivy grads are after, isn’t it?
December 9th, 2008 at 5:01 pm
Those of us in New England make distinctions between the pronunciations of ’scary’, ‘Larry’, and ‘merry’, so this post’s title is a little confusing.