If only all historians were paid big bucks like Newt

By DAVID LEBEDOFF

January 26, 2012 at 3:49AM
Freddie Mac Corporate Office
Freddie Mac Corporate Office (Elliott Polk (Clickability Client Services) — Associated Press/The Minnesota Star Tribune)

Newt Gingrich has disclosed that he was paid $1.6 million by Freddie Mac -- one of the most wicked sisters since "Cinderella" -- simply for his skills as a historian.

That's a lot of money, even for a former speaker of the House, and Gingrich insists that the payments were not for political influence of any kind. It's just that historians don't come cheap.

In the unlikely event that this story is true, Gingrich will have done more for the study of liberal arts than the National Endowment for the Humanities could ever hope to achieve.

All over the country, M.B.A. candidates are no doubt even now switching to doctoral programs in history. That's where the real money is. Goodbye Goldman Sachs, Hello Peloponnesian War seminar.

If only we had known. Think of all the rent wasted on New York walkups, however crowded, by young traders who could have located in cheaper and greener quarters while they studied the effect of the Treaty of Utrecht on the future of the British Empire.

It's frustrating as well that so many academics have disparaged the sharp decline in funding for their programs, and the consequent rise in tuition. What's a few bucks more to the bursar when the payoff for history is so high?

Sure, Gingrich must have felt some economic pinch when he spent six months in Brussels finishing his doctoral dissertation on "Belgian Educational Policy in the Congo, 1945-1960." There may have been those who thought he'd never recoup his investment of time and money.

But Freddie Mac executives aren't paid so well to fool around. They recognized talent when they saw it. When the services of a scholar were needed, they knew just whom to call.

And besides, $1.6 million isn't all that much in today's global economy. Just think what Newt could have charged if his specialty were ornithology.

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David Lebedoff is a Minneapolis attorney and author.

about the writer

about the writer

DAVID LEBEDOFF