"Cambridge on the Potomac; For Harvard, 'change' means a return to power" by Drake Bennett | January 18, 2009
.... Larry Summers, the university's former president, has been named director of the National Economic Council; and Elena Kagan, the law school dean, is Obama's pick for solicitor general. Arne Duncan, a member of the university's Board of Overseers and a graduate of the college, has been selected education secretary; John Holdren, a professor of environmental policy, and Eric Lander, head of the Broad Institute of MIT and Harvard, are key science advisers. Cass Sunstein, one of the biggest names on the law school faculty, will head the Office of Information and Regulatory Affairs, and Julius Genachowski, a law school alum, will head the FCC. There is also the lengthening list of alums and faculty members taking on jobs as deputy secretaries, associate attorney generals, ambassadors, and all the other powerful - albeit not always visible - posts whose occupants hash out and enforce the details of policy.
That Obama's administration will have a Harvard imprint makes sense. A preternaturally self-confident product of the meritocracy, Obama has a reputation as a seeker of the expertise and intellect that Harvard prides itself on attracting. And while it wasn't something he emphasized - or even much mentioned - on the campaign trail, Obama first made a name for himself in Cambridge, as a standout student at Harvard Law School and the first black president of the school's law review. He remains close to many of his mentors and friends from those days, some of whom are on the long Harvard roster in the administration that assumes power this week.
Still, if Washington's new Crimson tint has felt like something of a departure, it's because the Bush years were an era of comparatively slight White House influence for Harvard and its peers. Some Harvard alumni and faculty did serve under Bush, including economics professor Greg Mankiw, who chaired the Council of Economic Advisers, as well as college alums John Yoo at the Justice Department and Douglas Feith at the Defense Department, who helped shape the administration's response to terrorism.
So TORTURE is O.K. Yoo and Office of Special Plans, neo-con Feith are HARVARD BOYS, 'eh?
But the administration's eight years of hiring were shaped by a leeriness of Ivy Leaguers. Bush is vocal in his suspicion of "elites," and the schools that educate and employ them....
You know, seeing as BUSH GRADUATED from IVY LEAGUE YALE, I think I'm going to save you the trouble and end this silliness right now!
If you want to waste time and punish yourself, you know where to click:
