There are some things in the speech that would make a few of the liberals I know uncomfortable, such as the line that “We may debate the nature of truth, but there are truths beyond debate.”

However, Summers doesn’t get very far in trying to suggest what these truths might be. The best he can do is to talk generally of “life and liberty”, and to insist “that every person be seen fairly as an individual and not on their race or creed.”

I expect this represents a stepping back to an earlier form of American liberalism.

By the way, I heard on Melbourne radio a snippet of a September 11 speech by Mayor Bloomberg. He said something like “the sacred principle of freedom and equality on which we build our lives.” I haven’t been able to find the text of the speech in the papers here. I’d be grateful if anyone could provide the exact quote, or the context from which it was drawn.

Mark Richardson is exactly right. The news is not that the president of Harvard is talking like a traditionalist conservative instead of like a leftist. The news is that he is talking like a traditional liberal instead of like a leftist. This and other similar alterations are in keeping with my post on “The Hilarious Dilemma of Liberal Patriotism.” The September 11th attack has resulted in a pullback from leftist madness in some quarters, if only toward a somewhat more moderate left-liberalism, or, better, as in the case of Summers, an early ’60s liberalism. Still, to coin a cliché, that’s progress.

“One year ago the ground were are standing on shook and the earth gave way. Although the buildings fell, the foundation on which all Americans stand never fell. For it is the sacred principle of freedom and equality on which we build our lives.” Bloomberg said it while presiding over the reading of the names of those who died. There’s an account at http://www.nydailynews.com/front/story/18424p-17270c.html .

I am not so sure that it is progress. The retreat to classical liberalism provides a great service to radical left liberalism. On the one hand it validates the core ideology of politics as enforcement of freedom and equality. On the other it provides the radical Left with an opposition so that liberalism itself — left and classical — dominates all discussion, and most people are left in the dark as to the existence of other possible modes of thought. But for a chance encounter with Mr. Kalb’s writing about a decade ago I might still be a classical liberal myself, and I am hardly the least objective member of the populace.