Harvard is giving Larry Summers and Conrad Harper honorary degrees today.

What an odd decision! Summers, of course, was more or less fired as Harvard president in 2006. Harper, meanwhile, resigned from the Harvard Corporation to protest various things about Larry Summers in the summer of 2005.

Likely this is an attempt to make them both feel better about the university that, for various reasons, each felt forced to leave, even if only temporarily. An act of healing. And, of course, the better Summers and Harper feel about Harvard, the more likely they are to keep quiet about what really happened during the Summers' years.

Think I'm being too cynical? Surely it can't be coincidence that Harper and Summers are getting honorary degrees the same year.... Wouldn't you have loved to have been a fly on the wall for those meetings?

Lots of questions surround this one. What exactly will that honorary degree commendation to Larry Summers say? How do you finesse the fact that you're giving an honorary degree to a man who was forced to resign from the presidency of the university? And why not wait a little longer to do it?

One thing's for sure: This is a political act that shows how honorary degrees are used for various things that have nothing to do with simply applauding the accomplishments of their recipients. Not a huge shock there, but this does make it more obvious than usual.