News Herald

Say you're a Harvard professor and you decide to dabble a bit in politics. You decide to move back to Canada in hopes of becoming prime minister. Shouldn't be that hard. Before you go, you tell the school paper that if things don't work out, you'll probably return to Boston and pick up where you left off.

That would appear to have been Michael Ignatieff's plan, but things might not work out the way he was hoping. Harvard is going through some tough times. According to Boston magazine, its endowment, onces a porcine $37 billion, is down about $11 billion due to some unfortunate investment setbacks. And since it's not making any money, Harvard has to withdraw about $1.4 billion from capital to cover its operating costs, which would normally have been paid for out of profits. Which leaves a relatively paltry $24 billion left in the fund.

Not bad by most standards, but Harvard is used to big-time spending, without worrying much about where the money comes from. (Hey, that reminds me of a federal political party here in Canada. No wonder Ignatieff felt at home with the Liberals!)  It has big expenses, and $24 bil isn't going to cover them. In fact, says the magazine:

 While Harvard officials are doing their public-face best to downplay the problem, the numbers don't lie, and this economic crunch will leave the school a profoundly changed place. Harvard will have to become smaller and academically more modest, and as it does it will chafe at having grand plans without the resources to fund them. For the first time in decades, it will worry about merely paying its bills. The university will have to decide: If it is no longer so rich that it doesn't have to make choices, what does it really value? What are its priorities? It won't be a comfortable debate.

"We are in trouble," says one Crimson professor. In the aftermath of deep and damaging cuts, "there is a real chance that Harvard will no longer be considered the best there is."

Uh-oh. If things take a wrong turn in Ottawa, the Liberal leader might have to reconsider Plan B. It's just possible the old school won't be waiting with open arms, or without an open chequebook anyway. Maybe he'll have to stick around Ottawa longer. Maybe he'll have to teach at a Canadian university. Oh, the shame. Hey, maybe that's why he's so eager to make it easier to collect EI.

Kelly McParland
National Post

MOO-ED OFF THE STAGE?

After Faux Waterboarding, Mancow Appears To Lose DC

How's this for interesting timing? Less than a week after an ill-advised "waterboarding" stunt led to a supposed ideological conversion, shock jock turned syndicated talk host Erich 'Mancow' Muller has apparently lost a key radio affiliate.

According to DCRTV, as well as one of your Radio Equalizer's own sources, the Chicago-based Mancow will be removed later this month from his morning drive slot on DC's WTNT-AM (Freedom 570):

DC Times Radio Show To TNT? - 6/1 - DCRTV hears that the most likely spot on the DC radio dial for the new Washington Times morning radio show is Red Zebra righty talker WTNT (570 AM).

The WTNT morning slot is currently occupied by the Chicago-based Mancow. The nationally syndicated Times news and political talk radio show debuts on 6/15 from studios at the Times' New York Avenue headquarters.

Expected to take Mancow's place in DC is a new program featuring former KSFO / San Francisco morning host Melanie Morgan teamed with John McCaslin of the Washington Times:

Longtime radio personality Melanie Morgan and award-winning newspaper columnist John McCaslin have been named the anchors for The Washington Times' new morning-drive radio show, set to debut nationwide June 15.

"America's Morning News" will hit the airwaves from 6 to 9 a.m., five days a week, showcasing The Times' investigative and accountability journalism. The new team will hash out politics, defense, security, policy, culture and entertainment from a newly built, state-of-the-art broadcast facility inside The Times' newsroom.

"Melanie and John will leverage every ounce of expertise, energy and gumshoe reporting out of The Times' investigative newsroom. They know how to break stories that matter to the American public, are passionate about holding the powerful to account and are committed to unearthing the stories that matter most to Americans - at the dinner table, by the water cooler and inside their pocketbook," Executive Editor John Solomon said.

Both Mancow and the new program have a syndicator in common, the Oregon-based Talk Radio Network.

Whether there's a direct connection between the sudden station loss and last week's waterboarding stunt, widely derided as a stunt despite (or because of) Keith Olbermann's ringing endorsement isn't known. But the backlash over what may have been an outright hoax certainly hasn't helped his career, that's for sure.

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Via Eric Kleefield, we find Michael Goldfarb doing some first rate sleuthing based on President Obama saying "thank you" to the King of Saudi Arabia in Arabic:

Obama has said before that he speaks "barely passable Spanish" and "a smattering of Swahili," as well as some Bahasa from his youth in Indonesia. But Obama has at other times denied speaking a foreign language, saying in July of last year, "I don't speak a foreign language. It's embarrassing!"

[...]

It seems there is some legitimate confusion on just what languages Obama speaks, and as far as Arabic, the only real hint has came from Nick Kristof, who heard Obama recite the Muslim call to prayer in Arabic and with a "first-rate accent" back in 2007. With even the White House now smearing Obama as a Muslim, one wonders if the president hasn't been concealing some greater fluency with the language of the Koran.

Bonus points to anyone who can find Goldfarb's point. It's like the logical conclusion to his own innuendo is so personally embarrassing that he's not even willing to make the point himself. And apparently David Petraeus is also "fluent" in Arabic.

-- A. Serwer

CQ Politics notes a new Gallup survey found that only 11% of Republicans are Hispanics or blacks or members of other races. That compares with 36% of Democrats who are non-white and 27% of independents.