Every time this grifter shows up in the press – well, he's never available for comment, but there's always a group of elected and/or well-paid surrogates to dutifully blow smoke on his behalf – my outrage grows at why more people aren't outraged. https://bit.ly/3nTeFwr  (1/n)

This time, though, even I have to admit just how well this guy has played the people of Nebraska – especially those who we entrust with our university, arguably our state's most precious resource. #NUforNE (2/n)

His time was really well-spent. He reached into matters he had no business in, vacationed with millionaires, complained he didn't get paid enough, pitted people and institutions against one another, meddled in athletics, and punished perceived challenges to his omniscience. (3/n)

We figured he was a poor administrator dude getting bad advice. What we weren't aware of at the time was that as he was raining down pain on the institutions, he was busy arranging lucrative post-presidency deals for himself. That's some Trump-level work right there. (4/n)

I also give him great credit for recognizing how to slither into the ranks of the state's insular, self-justifying moneyed class, and for discovering that the really big bucks aren't in trying to improve students' lives or raise the quality of the system's institutions. (5/n)

Nope, he rightly ascertained that the big money is in the tightly intertwined football network – coaches, fundraisers, donors, ex-athletes, assorted hangers-on, etc. He fits that scene like a glove; his membership in the Red Blazer Club has made him a millionaire. (6/n)

Looking back on the hellscape he and his enablers created at the system's academic institutions from 2015-19, my only regret is that he didn't figure out how he could leverage his role as president to fully enrich himself much, much sooner ... (7/n)

... because there would've been less damage inflicted upon fewer people: those who actually want to live in Nebraska, who work to make it a better place, who might care about things beyond getting pushed around by Wisconsin or Ohio St. – or, now, Illinois – on Saturdays. (8/8)