Sunday, August 07, 2005
Aren't these called universities?
'Rich liberals vow to fund think tanks' - headline, washingtonpost.com.
Historically, liberals have gotten their best policy ideas from universities. Conservatives only built up their own "infrastructure," if that is indeed the word for it, because universities are so tilted toward the left. Not only were universities not pumping out a lot of policy ideas useful to conservatives, but conservative scholars found them to be increasingly difficult places to work. They had to go somewhere.
Liberals, though, are naturally at home in universities. Why would any good liberal scholar leave a top university to go work for some think tank? How will liberal "think tanks" be able to compete for either talent or output with, say, Princeton's Woodrow Wilson School? Anybody who proposes to finance this venture may want to answer these questions before actually writing the check.
At least 80 wealthy liberals have pledged to contribute $1 million or more apiece to fund a network of think tanks and advocacy groups to compete with the potent conservative infrastructure built up over the past three decades.
Historically, liberals have gotten their best policy ideas from universities. Conservatives only built up their own "infrastructure," if that is indeed the word for it, because universities are so tilted toward the left. Not only were universities not pumping out a lot of policy ideas useful to conservatives, but conservative scholars found them to be increasingly difficult places to work. They had to go somewhere.
Liberals, though, are naturally at home in universities. Why would any good liberal scholar leave a top university to go work for some think tank? How will liberal "think tanks" be able to compete for either talent or output with, say, Princeton's Woodrow Wilson School? Anybody who proposes to finance this venture may want to answer these questions before actually writing the check.
1 Comments:
By 
TigerHawk, at
Mon Aug 08, 03:47:00 PM:
One is almost forced to wonder what he said...
