His essay appearing in The Village Voice: Why I Am No Longer a ‘Brain-Dead Liberal’
Samantha Power & the Obama Controversy
It’s rare that professors find themselves at the center of a political firestorm. But that’s where Samantha Power, Professor of Practice of Global Leadership and Public Policy at Harvard, found herself last week when, during an off-the-record conversation with a reporter, she referred to Hillary Clinton as a “monster” and then had to resign as senior foreign policy to adviser to Barack Obama.
Until then, Power had been riding a big wave of success. Only 37 years old, she won the Pulitzer Prize for her first book, A Problem from Hell: America and the Age of Genocide. She’s also now promoting her second book, Chasing the Flame: Sergio Vieira de Mello and the Fight to Save the World. (Watch a clip from the book tour here). And until this high profile slip-up, she was clearly helping shape Obama’s foreign policy. You can hear Power’s influence in how Obama answered the highly publicized question last summer — would you, as president, negotiate directly with Iran’s Ahmadinejad? (He said yes.) Power’s thinking on international diplomacy gets articulated fairly well in this lengthy interview. Below, we’ve also posted a clip (from FORA.tv) of Power speaking about Obama and the question of negotiating with enemies. (Get the full talk here.)
The Dearth of Conservative Professors Explained
Liberals outnumber conservatives in the academy. That’s a known fact. What explains this divergence? Some have attributed it to liberals creating a hostile environment for conservatives. But new research calls that view into question and offers an intriguing alternative explanation.
As described in The Chronicle of Higher Education, Matthew Woessner (a conservative academic) and April Kelly-Woessner (a liberal academic) looked at surveys completed by 15,569 college seniors, and what an analysis of the data suggests is that “the personal priorities of those on the left are more compatible with pursuing a Ph.D.” “Liberalism is more closely associated with a desire for excitement, an interest in creative outlets, and an aversion to a structured work environment. Conservatives express greater interest in financial success and stronger desires to raise families. From this perspective, the ideological imbalance that permeates much of academia may be somewhat intractable.” Or, put differently, this imbalance may not be going away any time soon.
To delve further into their research, you can read their report online here.
Don’t Forget to Vote
If you’re a resident of a Super Tuesday state, we hope you can find some time to pull the lever tomorrow. Also, we hope you’ll forgive (at least) one more political post before Super Tuesday. Whatever your political affiliations, the video below is a compelling example of new media at work. According to the New York Times’ political blog, the lead singer of the Black Eyed Peas rounded up 30 or so celebrities and put together this video set to the soundtrack of Barack Obama’s concession speech in New Hampshire. Because the group worked for free and edited the video on their own, they turned the project around in two days. The effect is powerful (and the video is added to our YouTube Playlist). You can see Obama’s original speech here.
The Long Shadow of Henry Kissinger
Although he hasn’t served in government for more than 30 years, Henry Kissinger still exercises more power internationally than Jimmy Carter, George HW Bush and Bill Clinton combined. That’s a strong claim, and it comes from Professor Jeremi Suri, who has a new book out on the former Secretary of State. In a wide-ranging and fast moving conversation (MP3 — iTunes — Feed), Suri talks about Kissinger’s legacy and how his realpolitik foreign policy shapes American decision making down to this very day.
Open Sourcing Congress
The truism goes that laws and sausages are the two things you don’t want to see being made. Nevertheless, if more of us paid attention to what our congressional representatives are really up to (and let them know when they screw up), we’d probably be a little happier with how the system works overall. Two thirds of Americans think we’re on the wrong track (if recent polls are to be believed), and with the presidential elections coming up there’s no better time to start paying attention.
All that’s a long run-up to mentioning a new website initiative called Open Congress designed to help the average citizen figure out what the heck is going on in Washington. Track representatives and bills that you’re interested in; interact with other users who share your concerns; sort through data by issue or industry. It just got a little easier to make your vote count.
Who Do We Vote For This Time Around? A Letter from Michael Moore
The Iowa caucus is finally and mercifully upon us. And right in time, filmmaker Michael Moore has offered an analysis of the Democratic field of candidates. There’s much here that I don’t particularly agree with here, but Moore makes two large claims that strike me as being fundamentally (and regretfully) true:
- The “Democratic front-runners are a less-than-stellar group of candidates, and … none of them are the slam dunk we wish they were.”
- “For months I’ve been wanting to ask the question, “Where are you, Al Gore?” You can only polish that Oscar for so long. And the Nobel was decided by Scandinavians! I don’t blame you for not wanting to enter the viper pit again after you already won. But getting us to change out our incandescent light bulbs for some irritating fluorescent ones isn’t going to save the world. All it’s going to do is make us more agitated and jumpy and feeling like once we get home we haven’t really left the office.”
A Conversation with Benazir Bhutto
Again, no commentary needed. Informative in many ways, Bhutto’s talk was taped at the Council on Foreign Relations in August. More info here.
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