Larry Summers is no more free to pop off at the mouth about a vexed academic question than George Bush is free to wander around the country dropping off-the-cuff remarks about Social Security or Islam. Of course both men are free in the First Amendment sense to say anything that comes into their pretty little heads; but the constitutional freedom they enjoy is freedom from legal consequences, not from consequences in general. (Can anyone say, Trent Lott?) —Stanley Fish —Clueless in Academe (Chronicle)