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Gregory Mankiw, chairman of the president's Council of Economic Advisers, has been in exile .. Mankiw, it will be recalled, has not only said that pension benefits must be cut if the books are to be balanced, but is the author of a leading textbook that teaches, "The most basic lesson about a budget deficit [is]: . . . When the government reduces national saving by running a budget deficit, the interest rate rises, and investment falls." Not the sort of stuff a criticism-averse White House wants to hear as it fights to have its tax cuts made permanent, and revenues siphoned from the Treasury into private retirement accounts. Mankiw will be relieved to return to Harvard, where criticism of the president is not only tolerated, but required for academic advancement.