Poor, poor Larry Summers. The guy would’ve had every reason to think he was on top of the world three months ago. Then — boom, kabam, BOOM! — he runs afoul of political correctness and now fellow faculty members at Harvard have expressed a vote of no confidence in their president. All of this brouhaha based on what exactly? On daring to say, in a forum intended to try on all modes of thought, that women might in fact think differently than men? For telling an anecdote demonstrating that — as every well-meaning parent has discovered for the past 30 years — little girls tend to play with dolls and little boys tend to play with trucks, regardless of “gender-neutral” parenting experiments? O, the horror.

What harsh taskmasters these minions of diversity are! Apparently, it’s not enough that the man has apologized many times since he made the mistake of supposing that he was free to propound even hypothetical thoughts of gender differences in a forum devoted to free inquiry. (Boy, wotta doof!) And apparently, past credentials as a good card-carrying liberal and ex-Treasurer under the Clinton Administration don’t mean anything. Because at the end of the day, he’s still just y’know … sitting there. Being all male and white. Probably smoking cigars and listening to Rush Limbaugh when no one was looking. Thank goodness that the crusaders of thought propriety took action to save us all from such villains!

I haven’t bothered to post anything on this because I assumed it would blow itself out. But no, it seems to be feeding and growing like a forest fire — in the way that things fueled more by passions than reason seem always to do. It must surely be about out of combustible material by now. This last vote, together with another equally idiotic one “expressing regret for his comments”, don’t change anything:

The two non-binding motions, unique in Harvard’s history, are largely symbolic gestures—only the Harvard Corporation, the University’s top governing body, can force Summers to step down.

So what was the point? Why keep burning him at the stake, and why put everyone else through it?

This law professor from George Mason postulates that it might have something to do with leftover leftist hostility from the Bush election. And this blogger thinks that Summers’ Clinton ties might’ve made things worse for him instead of better.

Maybe both of those seem a little far-fetched, but then the excess of emotion here obviously signals something. I think that it may have to do with the left just feeling generally powerless these days. They squawk — or, in the case of Dean, outright scream — and people who’ve gotten used to the sound just dismiss it as background noise. They protest, and no one cares. They flex muscles, and they have to give ground anyway. So, what to do? Well apparently, as we’ve seen in the discussions of Iraq, when in doubt, retreat to the past. If Iraq is too complicated, mentally substitute the word “Vietnam” and proceed as if nothing has changed since 1967. If you can’t try and execute Bush or Condi Rice, by golly, line a Harvard president up against the wall. Even if you can’t fire the guy, you can reclaim those glory days when you could’ve. The fact that it’s unfair and unreasonable doesn’t matter. Apparently, group cattharsis is more important here. They got their hooks into a good scapegoat, and by golly, those are hard to come by.

I feel sorry for the guy. And I feel sorry for women who are getting their education at Harvard. Because these harpies will certainly have shouted down any rational dialogue for some time to come.