In the video compilation below, the Washington Free Beacon draws on the chorus of hosannas that greeted the announcement Claudine Gay’s appointment to the presidency of Harvard in December 2022 after a five-month search. The Wall Street Journal reminds us: “That was the shortest search in about 70 years, according to the Harvard Crimson, the student newspaper.”

Gay’s appointment set off a stampede among the media’s herd of independent minds. As the members of the herd noted, she was an immigrant, she was black, she was a woman…woo hoo!

Although he had a little trouble reading the script, Al Sharpton’s contribution to the video must be the highlight. According to Sharpton, Gay was “a widely admired higher education leader and recognized as a highly influential expert on American political participation” (with her meager record of published pieces). Sharpton himself is of course the widely admired racial arsonist. It was good to have his assessment of Gay’s scholarly standing.

In the closing seconds of the video the Beacon takes a victory lap over its contribution to the denouement of Gay’s presidency. My daughter Eliana looks back in her Free Beacon story “Regime Change Comes to Harvard.” Eliana recalls the euphemism contributed by the Harvard Corporation to the defense of Gay before her resignation yesterday: “duplicative language without proper attribution.” The benefits of a Harvard education!

Via Thaleigha Rampersad.