Semi-Daily Journal

Fatalities

American soldiers 170
British soldiers 20
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190 Since May 2

American 310
British 52
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362 Since March 20

Wounded

American soldiers ~1644

Note: Danish fatality listed with British
Spanish fatality listed with British

Note: American forces have fallen to 130,000
British forces have risen to 11,000

Prof DeLong, care to lay any odds that Ashcroft will allow Justice to investigate the White House in any meaningful way?

I’m getting a little worried. Delong and Krugman seem concerned with the Bush administration to the point of obsession. Politics is a dirty business and if you look hard enough at any administration you can harvest a lot of negatives (selection bias). Why do I say I’m “worried?” I say that because both these men are important professors at important universities, and being so negative about conservatives might unconsciously color their judgments. In today’s New York Times David Brooks writes about the career barriers nonconforming (meaning conservative) students faceat our important universities. Here is one particularly telling excerpt:

“ ‘This is one of the most difficult things,’ says Alan Kors, a rare conservative at Penn. ‘One is desperate to see people of independent mind willing to enter the academic world. On the other hand, it is simply the case they will be entering hostile and discriminatory territory.’ “

And another:

“ ‘But say he gets through. He's going to run into intense discrimination trying to find a job. But say he lands a tenure-track job. He'll run into even more intense discrimination because the establishment gets more concerned the closer you get to the golden ring.’ “

The whole article is here: http://www.nytimes.com/2003/09/27/opinion/27BROO.html

In today’s Volokh Conspiracy Juan writes about his own experiences as a nonconforming student at Yale. Juan quotes his faculty advisor:

“To illustrate the risk, he noted that one of his colleagues on the graduate admissions committee explicitly blackballed each and every candidate who had ever received financial support (scholarships, fellowships, etc.) from the John M. Olin Foundation because, his colleague insisted, the Olin Foundation only funded people who thought like they did, and Yale did not want any graduate students who thought that way.”

Please don’t misinterpret what I say. Remember I’m only a “little” worried.

I keep seeing comments like Alan's above, and I think that those who make them are not quite as clever as they think they are. I don't mean that to be as insulting as it sounds. What I mean, really, is that there is a level of political sophistication that is a bit sophomoric in that it oversimplifies things in its attempt to see things with a bit nuance (or, really, suspicion) than does the truly naive viewpoint. In this case, the view that this will be immediately stifled by the Justice department appears to be sophisticated, but is actually somewhat naive. It underestimates the how much political opportunists will take advantange of a changing wind and exert a lot of influence. Republican moderates, and innocent Republicans both within and outside the White House, may want this investigation to go forward for a variety of reasons. It's also somewhat ignorant of government bureaucratic politics and process. The points at which the political appointees, including the Ashcrofts, are able to exert influence are before a process like this is initiated, and after its conclusion when higher-ups have to make a decision about what action to take in response to its findings. The White House had its best opportunity at damage control when they were still able to exert influence to avoid a CIA referral to Justice. They weren't able to do this, and it's no doubt because they've not a single friend at the CIA. Probably never could Ashcroft have short-circuited the process the CIA has initiated, but even if he could, he's not in a position to do so with this being as high-profile as it is. At this point, he has two alternatives. The first is not really to influence what the investigation reveals, but to delay the investigation's conclusion to some more opportune moment. That's a tricky calculation at close to one-year away from an election. The second possibility is to refuse to act on its findings, if they're unfavorable. That will be difficult to do.

In general, I think people need to brush up on their Watergate history a bit. The lesson there is that conspiracy and cover-up work quite well....until it doesn't. When it doesn't, everything falls apart at once in ways that surprise most people. My gut intuition tells me that this administration has made a good number of enemies, not a few of them within its own camp, and it wars among itself, and all this translates into some blood in the water that will have predictable and unpredictable sharks circling. A big wildcard is how hard the press will decide to play this. And that will be decided between they and their sources in terms of just how much blood is in the water.

I write about that steaming heap of goat-clusters on
my blog today

Hey Brad, Krugman gives you a nice plug in his speech at Berkeley

It's more than worth an hour of your time, folks. A refeshing whiff of snaity in a world where some people actually take David Brooks seriously.

http://webcast.berkeley.edu/events/index.html

Thanks, Zarkov, for your characteristic commentary. Krugman and DeLong do indeed seem to think that politics and economics are important, which is quite a grievous error from the higher spiritual point of view espoused by George Will (for example). And they just hate Buish but they never give any reasons why. They just hop around on one foot screaming "Bush bad!" over and over again. Highly unprofessional.

I have trouble believing that conservatives are banned from economics departments. What happened to the monetarists? Has Milton Friedman been expelled from the profession?

I used to know a guy who dishes out Olin money and I can believe that what people say about Olin is true. He's a Straussian, and Straussians also have a reputation for only hiring their own. Over the decades it would have been worth tens, perhaps hundreds of thousands of dollars for me to have stayed friends with him, I'm sure.

No question. I believe the only university where a person is free to think is Bob Jones. The heck with Princeton and Berkeley and Michigan and Cornell, send the kiddies to Bob Jones and watch them think free as free as free as long as they think as Bob Jones.

Harvard was horrid. I was so afraid the thought police were about to pounce. So afraid. Had I ever lost my Mao t-shirt there would have been consequences. Imagine, they let me in and out and in again. Whew.

Crazy Davy Brocky: The smiling bigotry that you are peddling is what frightens me.

Crazy Davy Brocky will only be content when WASP culture again rules supreme. Why do you think Crazy Davy shills for Charles "Bell Curve" Murray?

Last we heard Crazy Davy was sad that Chicago Puerto Ricans did not aspire to nobility. Huh? This guy is a radical right loon, smiling all the way to your hearts.

Save the kiddies from Dartmouth...................

http://fablog.ehrensteinland.com/

"I say that because both these men are important professors at important universities, and being so negative about conservatives might unconsciously color their judgments."

Economists across the spectrum are negative about the W. Bush economic policies. Many conservatives, including such figures as McMain and Byrd are also unhappy with the W. Bush foreign policy.

It's not about being conservative or liberal; the W. Bush administration has long since crossed those lines--they are destructive and wasteful, and people across the political spectrum can see it.

Why can't you?

http://fablog.ehrensteinland.com/

Wilsongate?

George Bush is not a conservative, but a radical leader of a radical right Administration. When the Administration is addressed directly, the tactic is to play hurt or ridicule. Fortunately from Senator Robert Byrd to Al Franken to George Akerlof, increasingly tough questions are being asked of the Administration and evasions and distortions are not being accepted as answers. Poor dears, radical rightees are so hurt when anyone pays attention to what they are about.

Lay off A.Zarkov. He's just trying to get a job at Slate.

Imagine. A diplomat is sent to Africa to determine whether Iraq has tried to buy uranium. The diplomat finds the story false but the finding is set aside and the story is used as part of the rationale for going to war. The diplomat complains. The diplomat's wife is "exposed" by high Administration officials as a CIA covert agent.

Where is Martin Luther King? We need a march on Washington for the rights of oppressed campus conservatives. Of course William Buckley despised MLK and the civil rights movement, so who knows. Free the conservative seven or eight or nine or ten.

Campus conservatives fighting for the right to be free. Go it, proud rightees....

Biology departments definitely skew left of center. After all, they believe evolution is true.

"To announce that there must be no criticism of the president . . . right or wrong, is not only unpatriotic and servile, but is morally treasonable to the American public."

-- Teddy Roosevelt, 1918

Zizka says:

“I used to know a guy who dishes out Olin money and I can believe that what people say about Olin is true. He's a Straussian, and Straussians also have a reputation for only hiring their own.” Fair enough, but do two wrongs make a right? Doesn’t a public university have an obligation to select graduate students and grant tenure without regard to political purity? He also says:

“I have trouble believing that conservatives are banned from economics departments. What happened to the monetarists? Has Milton Friedman been expelled from the profession?” A reasonable question. I don’t know, perhaps someone can enlighten us. As for monetarism, I was unaware that this is a conservative theory. Why would it be?

Please. This is the same radical right claptrap about the liberal media. What rubbish. These radical rightees are in the White House and lead the Congress. All I give a darn about is beating these destructive rightees.

There are professors and students of every political leaning, the ones with sense understand what these radical rightees are about.

Please. This is just radical right intimidating claptrap. I spend every day at Harvard, and there are profs and students of all stripes, and all sorts of arguments. So what? The research is fabulous, the classes are fabulous, and you can work with whomever you wish [student or professor-professor or student]. And, I think these radical rightees are horrid. So what?

"Where is Martin Luther King?"

Well I can't really do King, but I'll take a stab at Bayard Rustin if you like. (My friend Maggie can play Eleanor Roosevelt.)

http://www.mediawench.com/maggie_island/maggie_and_david.jpg

If there are any left-liberal monetarist economists, would someone just shoot me?

>> Campus conservatives fighting for the right to be free. Go it, proud rightees.... <<

Glad to hear it, actually. I'm still mystified that only the left has seen fit to worry about the suspension of habeas corpus in the States.