Tuesday, October 11, 2005

Stupidest Tierney Column Ever!

by Tom Bozzo

I know, I know, you could practically write two posts under this title a week if you were so inclined from the output of Mr. Makes-You-Nostalgic-For-Safire, but today's installment, "Where Cronies Dwell," (following the link may make you regret your Times Select subscription if you have one) does take at least a piece of cake. Carrying some water for the administration, Tierney suggests that accusations of cronyism from journalists and lawprofs constitute a mote-in-someone-else's eye, log-in-one's-own critique. Why?
David Horowitz, the conservative who is president of the Center for the Study of Popular Culture, analyzed the political affiliations of the faculty at 18 elite journalism and law schools. By checking all the party registrations he could find, he concluded that Democrats outnumber Republicans by 8 to 1 at the law schools, with the ratio ranging from 3 to 1 at Penn to 28 to 1 at Stanford.
That's right, Republicans are outnumbered on law school faculties, so cronyism must be partly to blame. Cracking logic there, John.

Consider:
Meanwhile, the UW law faculty bloggers I know or know of — by my estimation, three liberals, one conservative, and one hard-to-classify recent inductee into the Ancient and Hermetic Order of the Shrill (who, it should be said, reports having "mellowed" on Miers after a run of scorching blogging on the subject) — report the following legal educations:
Shocking that such people could be considered fit to teach in law schools!

You do have to wonder if this isn't some diabolical plot to erase the Times op-ed page from the discourse.

Addendum: Brad DeLong has a different objection here, but reaches a similar conclusion.
Comments:
I take issue with the contention that someone with a law degree from Yale is qualified to teach at UW.
 
Actually, if you must know, given the convoluted grading scheme we have going here, I think, in all honesty, only someone with a degree from UW Law (and therefore one who has lived through this particular hell herself) is qualified to teach here.
 
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