Tuesday, August 09, 2005
More on 'liberal think tanks'
Imagine how pleased I was, therefore, to run across this passage from The Right Nation, the outstanding history of the political rise of American conservatives in the fifty years since William F. Buckley graduated from Yale (more or less):
The oldest conservative think tank in Washington had been founded in 1943 by a group of businessmen. The American Enterprise Association (as it was christened at birth) was a decidedly unglamorous affair -- little more than a trade association that lobbied against wartime price controls and occasionally hired academics to produce reports. It was no match for the Brookings Institution, a much more middle-of-the-road think tank, with its generous budget, elegant premises and ability to combine an academic aura with close ties to the political establishment. In 1954 the association's president considered putting the organization out of its misery but instead recruit William Baroody, a young Chamber of Commerce economist, to run the place.
Baroody, the son of a poor Lebanese immigrant, proved to be a talented intellectual entrepreneur. His aim was to convert the American Enterprise Institute (as he later rechristened it) into a conservative "brain trust." He understood that there could be no conservative movement without conservative theory. He and Glenn Campbell, a Harvard-trained economist, worked tirelessly to assemble a stable of thoroughbred scholars, appointing [Milton] Friedman and another free-market economist, Paul McCracken from the University of Illinois, as academic advisors. The logic was clear: if the Right was going to have a hard time getting its voice heard in universities, then it would invent conservative institutions of its own. And instead of teaching students, it would teach politicians.
Conservative think tanks can attract the best right-wing scholars, because they provide a much more hospitable environment than most of America's top research universities. This is not symmetrically true on the left. The result, I predict, will be that liberal think tanks will produce second-rate work and add little or nothing to left-wing politics.
By the way, The Right Nation, by John Micklethwait and Adrian Wooldridge of The Economist, is the best book on American politics that I have read in years, perhaps ever. The authors describe the rise of the American since it was flat on its back in the Eisenhower administration right to the present in very even-handed terms. Whether you are on the left or right, European or American, The Right Nation is extremely illuminating.
2 Comments:
By 
, at
Wed Aug 10, 01:39:00 PM:
Great post. Related stuff here:
While liberals slept
Sissy Willis
sisu
By , at
Thu Aug 11, 07:58:00 PM:
Two comments I posted at
Irish Pennants on the 7th:
Any relevance?
Will the purpose of these "think" tanks be to
influence the profs and admins at our country's
universities? Sort of like NARAL influencing
NOW. Guess the NEA hasn't been doing a good
enough job in K-12, nor the tenured lefties
in higher education, nor the MSM so some deep
thought would be advised. Hope they start with
the column by Cohen in the "Guardian" today.
Posted by: larwyn at August 7, 2005 05:20 PM
What do the leaders of the left see?The fortress walls of their "ivory towers" are being assaulted
by the J-Dams of "Academic Freedom" bills and agreements.
(Thank David Horowitz, Young America and all other conservative
student groups, alumni and parents)"Elite" Profs no longer held in esteem. Yeah, I am really going
to believe the Ph.D. in front of the "Kennedy School of Government" banner.
(Big Thank You to Prof Ward Churchill for making it perfectly clear)Brookings and COFR are not completely "nuts". If they need some
names for these new tanks, suggest they consult list of closed
state psych hospitals. "Mayview" seems fine name for any tank
that will have Krugman as its "scholar".As we remember how well the "best and brightest" worked out for
JFK re VN and Cuba, Hillary would get to recruit from "think tanks"
vs directly from the towers. (New Commander in Chief would have
PR problems appointing say Dept of Justice people directly from the law school faculty of
schools that are refusing recruiting on campus and ROTC
programs. Remember that the Clintons know how to "launder" as
well as any Soprano.)And finally when the real "realists" of the Left look out to 2008 and
see no sure thing - they want to set up/copy the Conservative model.
(Problem here is that they need "thinking". Galloway in the UK
said yesterday:
“socialism and Islam are very close, other than on the issue of the
existence of God."
Yeah, thinking along those lines will take over the Red States fast.)Their copies will probably be as effective as Air America, and Current TV,
but tenured profs and social "science" grads need jobs too.
Oh, did I mention the effects that OIL FOR FOOD, and if anyone
ever gets back to, the NGO performances in Tsunami and African aid
programs. This is a guaranteed employment drive.
Almost forgot about the Journalism School grads, where will they go
with the shrinking subscriptions and ratings of the MSM.
I will stop now -- but surely some food for thought.
Left is in retreat from battles they don't think they can win.
Posted by: larwyn at August 8, 2005 03:32 PM
