Larry Summers, Most Ingenious Genius In History of Genius

Tim Cavanaugh | October 11, 2009

Cease to doubt that Larry Summers, current director of the Obama Administration's National Economic Council, can split atoms through sheer brilliance of thought. Of Ryan Lizza's swoon for Summers in El Neoyorkino I say only this: Unintentional mixed metaphors in strategic locations are sure evidence that you're being fed merde de boeuf, and this article ends with the sentence, "Obama and his team have pulled the economy back from the abyss, but they will get credit only when it has been rebuilt." Also the piece helpfully corroborates a prominent anecdote about Summers' intriguing to prevent Austan Goolsbee's dissent from entering the discussion of the Chrysler bailout.

But Summers buffs will come away more convinced than ever that the NEC director's intellectual giganticism is of such scale that America faces a clear way forward: We must give Larry Summers one of our South Pacific holdings as his own country, Geniustan, where he can be President, General Secretary, Admiral of the Ocean Sea and First Lady. Summers' Castle-Bravo-class yields of thermonuclear excogitation are just too powerful to be handled safely within the nation's borders.

Whole article. Wear protective gear and goggles.

Comments

Hugh Akston|10.11.09 @ 11:42PM|#

NEC director's intellectual giganticism

Intellectual Gigantism or Intellectual Elephantiasis would have been better.

|10.11.09 @ 11:50PM|#

The man is so smart that your statements would still be true even if he were a woman...

Warty|10.11.09 @ 11:51PM|#

The lackey next to the Great Man is definitely checking out his Package.

|10.11.09 @ 11:59PM|#

mixed metaphors in strategic locations

He's horning in on your racket, Tim. Don't let him win!

Tim Cavanaugh|10.12.09 @ 12:10AM|#

Believe me, I'm putting both oars in the fire and taking no prisoners as long as the iron's hot.

hmm|10.12.09 @ 12:07AM|#

I think Harvard might view Mr. Summers slightly different. That whole swap of debt and paying a shit load more than any of their Ivy League brethren is a little embarrassing, and expensive.

Nipplemancer|10.12.09 @ 12:34AM|#

Racist!

¢|10.12.09 @ 1:47AM|#

The guy next to him looks like a hollow skin around a blob of barbecue sauce.

Rich|10.12.09 @ 10:46AM|#

Now, *that* is funny! 8-)

Kolohe|10.12.09 @ 3:02AM|#

Credit to Mr. Cavanaugh for changing up the alt-text (and keeping it witty) when he the reprints the same picture from earlier articles.

smartass sob|10.12.09 @ 4:30AM|#

Genius? Genie's ass perhaps

Fist of Etiquette|10.12.09 @ 6:01AM|#

"Obama and his team have pulled the economy back from the abyss, but they will get credit only when it has been rebuilt."

I'm not sure why his team is trying to rebuild the abyss, but they seem well on their way.

db|10.12.09 @ 7:29AM|#

"Summers buffs"--intentional reference?

DJF|10.12.09 @ 8:12AM|#

“””””Harvard quickly hired him as president of the university, in 2001, and he arrived with an ambitious agenda that included increasing financial aid, placing a bigger emphasis on science, pushing faculty to spend more time teaching undergraduates, and continuing the expansion of Harvard into the Allston area of Boston. But five years later he was gone, forced out by a faculty that had lost confidence in him after a series of controversies, beginning with a dispute with Cornel West, a professor of Afro-American studies, and ending with comments that Summers had made about women faculty in the sciences. “””

Don’t forget Summers support of his Harvard friend Andrei Shleifer who got caught trying to rip off the Russians while he was under contract to help them. Summers obviously has brought that same kind of insider cronyism to his job in the White House where he gets to pick the winners and losers in the economy

|10.12.09 @ 9:53AM|#

Or to take arms against a sea of troubles.

|10.12.09 @ 10:26AM|#

I'll believe it when I see his fluorescent blue penis swinging around in the breeze.

jtuf|10.12.09 @ 11:09AM|#

I read Summer's speech about women and assigned it to my Animal Behavior students. It was a well written speech. All he did was say that it is possible for genetics to be partially responsible for behavioral differences between men and women. Scientists assume that every other behavioral difference is caused by a mixture of genetic and environmental factors. Why place the sex chromosome on a separate plane?

|10.12.09 @ 12:24PM|#

Harvard quickly hired him as president of the university, in 2001, and he arrived with an ambitious agenda that included increasing financial aid, placing a bigger emphasis on science, and continuing the expansion of Harvard into the Allston area of Boston.

pushing faculty to spend more time teaching undergraduates

I think I found the problem.