Larry Summers

CAMBRIDGE, MA - After the recently announced resignation of Harvard President Larry Summers, speculation has run rampant concerning his potential successors. Rumors have ranged anywhere from former US Vice President Al Gore to Harvard law alum and current US Senator Barak Obama to famed Comedy Central Daily Show host Jon Stewart. Whether any of these high powered candidates even want the job or whether current prominent, rich, white, male Harvard faculty members have the inside track remains to be seen, but there is one man who seems certain who will stand next in the limelight of the world's top university. Larry Summers.

"No, it's not me, silly! I'm the one who just resigned, remember!" Summers explained to HSP at a recent press conference in some grad student's dorm room. "It's just that I totally know who the next president will be. And I'm not talking about former and now interim Harvard president Derek Bok, since that would be cheating. Basically, while many have speculated that my decision to resign was based on my disagreements with the FAS faculty and anticipation of a virtually assured vote of no confidence in me at the next faculty meeting, this could not be further from the truth! In truth, I decided to resign because for the first time in my life, I've identified someone even more qualified for the position than myself. A man with the mental and physical toughness necessary for the job. A man, who at two years shy of four score and nothing, has just endured and survived an ordeal far more trying than anything I've been through in these past five years, my foot-in the-mouth women in science quagmire notwithstanding. I'm talking about a man of profound physical and structural integrity, a man of both indestructible moral fiber and cheek muscle fiber, who at 78 years young, can get shot in the face by Dick Cheney, yet still somehow duck the Wyoming grim reaper's blade like something out of the Matrix."

"Whether the Vice President was simply drunk or whether the Jagermeister just didn't sit too well with his morning cocktail of peyote, Viagra, cumadin, and nitroglycerin, he has clearly given this country a valuable gift, by unintentionally revealing the true character of the next man who will be in charge of this institution's unbelievably large endowment. Think of it. A Harvard president who, unlike myself, will be completely unfazed by pedestrian projectiles like fruits, vegetables, and copies of H-Bomb. To Harry Whittington, anything softer than military grade armor piercing rounds practically feels like Nerf. I don't know about you, but I'll sleep better at night knowing someone capable of that kind of bold leadership, and inhuman facial healing abilities, will be watching over the more than twenty billion dollars that flows in the form of liquid gold through the hidden network of underground pipes in Cambridge that no one knows about except three people alive...and Derek Bok is going to kill me!"

"But seriously, don't think getting Harry Whittington in will be as easy as it was to strong arm me out of office," Summers continued, coughing noticeably. "Although the Harvard presidency surely has some appeal to it, the man's practically drowning in offers. I hear he's secretly debating whether to head both the CIA and the Secret Service...after all, he's proven he can take a bullet for somebody, and not just anywhere, like in his left ass cheek like some overrated purple heart winners I know. Rumor has it he can stop bullets with any part of his body. I even have it on good authority that Harry Whittington's pancreas has been used to cut through both diamond and postmodern bullshit. Now that's really hard!"

Added American Astronomical Society President, Harvard Clowes Professor of Science, Master of Quincy House, and rumored presidential short list candidate Robert Kirshner, "I don't know a thing about Harry Whittington one way or another, except that his getting shot in the face may be the key to understanding the mysterious dark energy responsible for the current acceleration of the expansion of the universe. If that's the case, he can have the presidency as long as the Nobel Prize is still up for grabs."

"As far as presidencies at top ranked Universities go, this thing is not entirely unprecedented." Further explained Summers, unprompted. "Take current MIT president Susan Hockfield. Most people don't know this but Cheney shot her in the left shoulder twice back in '88. It's not like he shot her in the face or anything, but look what it's done for her career. Although of course, it's conceivable that she could have earned the position due to her own merits, despite, you know, her being chromosomally challenged."

Harry Whittington

"Anyway, with the resignation and all, I know you might think I'm not in such a great position to be naming successors or anything like that, but seriously, how can you not love a guy who not only endured a shrapnel face lift, but apologized to his "friend" on national television just because the shooter happens to be the Vice President. Now that's a natural born politician if I've ever seen one! Whoever the faculty and the Corporation select as the next president of this great institution, he should be named Harry Whittington, and he should also be the guy who Dick Cheney peppered with small arms fire. Any other choice would be unacceptable, and this university is too important a player in our pseudo-national mega-corporate empire for us to be mortgaging our future on someone with lesser recent facial injuries."

"As it stands, I feel quite content to leave this office, finally knowing that there exists a man capable of carrying on the legacy I have built here over the past half decade, with his face. As for my own career, things can only go up from here, especially since Dick Cheney has also agreed to shoot me in the face for a small fee. Of course he gave me a discount, seeing as he's been itching to spray buckshot into the head of a prominent Democrat for quite some time now. Either way, that's money well spent, and I should know since I used to manage the entire U.S. Treasury under Clinton!"

After a short sabbatical which will include his longtime personal passions of globalization, domestic economic policy, women's studies, and quail hunting, Summers told HSP of his post-Harvard plans to follow in Increase Mather's hallowed footsteps and start a small Ivy league college in New Haven. But the word on the street says that both he and Whittington will have competition, as it is strongly rumored that California Governor Arnold Schwarzenegger intends to pursue holding presidential positions at Harvard and Yale simultaneously using only his right arm.  HSP