A Crimson letter

So what part of “traitor” do you suppose the folks at Harvard didn’t understand?

It took the resignation of Mike Morell, a former deputy director and acting director of the CIA, from a fellowship and the abrupt cancellation by current CIA Director Mike Pompeo of a scheduled speech to make the powers that be understand that honoring Chelsea Manning as a visiting fellow was way over the line.

Manning, a former Army private, was sentenced to 35 years in federal prison for stealing hundreds of thousands of classified and other sensitive documents and turning them over to WikiLeaks. She was seven years into that sentence when pardoned by President Obama as he was exiting the White House.

Yes, a really proud moment at fair Harvard to welcome Manning into their midst.

Morell, in an impassioned letter, wrote, “It is my right, indeed my duty, to argue that the school’s decision is wholly inappropriate and to protest it by resigning from the Kennedy School — in order to make the point that leaking classified information is disgraceful and damaging to our nation.”

Pompeo, who canceled a Thursday evening speech, wrote, “My conscience and duty to the men and women of the Central Intelligence Agency will not permit me to betray their trust by appearing to support Harvard’s decision with my appearance at tonight’s event.”

Kennedy School Dean Douglas W. Elmendorf fell gently on his sword before the evening was out, rescinding Manning’s appointment and explaining, “I now think that designating Chelsea Manning as a Visiting Fellow was a mistake, for which I accept responsibility.”

Although he also insisted that in naming Manning a visiting fellow the school had not intended to “honor [Manning] in any way or to endorse any of her words or deeds.”

Guess we all have different definitions of “honor.”

Of course the list of visiting fellows at the school’s Institute of Politics this year is beginning to resemble a roster for the WWE, including the thuggish Corey Lewandowski, fired from the Trump campaign; Sean Spicer, the Baghdad Bob of Trump’s White House, along with Trump nemeses MSNBC hosts Joe Scarborough and Mika Brzezinski.

Funny, didn’t Harvard — even the Institute of Politics — once engage in serious scholarship?