Kathleen Parker writes a good piece on the Summers bruhaha at Harvard. It has a nice light touch, and, coming from a smart and attractive woman, it should be especially painful to those weird zealots who defend the awful Ward Churchill on the grounds of "academic freedom" and yet attack the president of Harvard for saying something--in an all-too-conditional and meanederingly sophisticated way--that is at least arguably true. I had a conversation with a professor on campus the other day who did just that: he defended Ward Churchill because "academic freedom" means he can say anything, but then chastized Summers for being an antedeluvian barbarian who should give up the presidency of the country’s oldest university because he said something some faculty objected to. Sometimes I think we are better off just mocking such people instead of trying to engage them in conversation. Yet, measure for measure must be answered. Read Parker. 
Everytime I think I could agree with the left, I laugh to myself in a Hobbesian way.
Seriously though these people hate economists, and like people who are just trying to disrupt the "system."
Think about this: Summers is one of the most well respected economists, I don’t agree with some of what he says because I think he is too pragmatic, but the guy knows what he is talking about. If Summers advice was consulted and followed consistently the United States would probably be better off ceteris paribus. This Ward Churchill guy flaunts his ignorance of economics, and doesn’t give a dammn about everything he takes for granted, people who are drawn to him have a death wish.
Which makes me wonder if there isn’t a natural desire for death, destruction, a sort of Anarchy, that once you believe you are oppressed the less the visible oppression the greater it is felt. Whatever it is, it is a direct rebellion against the Economist mentality. It is so perfect that the two are contrasted. On the one hand you have the politically correct (no matter what that woman says) prudent factual oriented economist Summers vs. the Brash screw facts and power structures Ward Churchill. Reactions or overreactions are telling.