Michelle Cottle in The New Republic:
It’s been well over a month now since Harvard’s Larry Summers offered some, shall we say, controversial, theories as to the disparity in gender achievement within the upper echelons of math and science. And still the Cambridge contretemps rages, covered in excruciating detail by a salivating media. It’s getting so a gal can’t enjoy her morning muffin without another breathless installment in the Summers saga leaping out from the A section of The New York Times or The Washington Post: Summers apologizes for eleventh time! Harvard faculty remains offended! Remarks said to be indicative of Summers’s total boorishness! Cornel West claims vindication!
Sweet Jesus, some days it’s hard to believe what a pack of pathetic, self-involved losers we the media have become. Honestly. For anyone remotely interested in why much of America disdains the national media as a bunch of liberal, pointy-headed elitists out of touch with the concerns of regular folk, look no further than the bizarre media obsession with L’Affaire Larry.
Yeah, yeah. The guy is president of the most prestigious university in the country. And whatever your thoughts on “nature v. nurture,” you’ve got to wonder what in the hell possessed Summers to plunge into this minefield, period, much less in the presence of a gaggle of academics–a famously touchy, politically correct, self-important lot. Even so, why couldn’t we have simply chewed over the juicier points of this issue for, say, two or maybe even three weeks and then moved on?
I’ll tell you why.
More here.