think tanks

Heh, Indeed: Education Ed.

Heh, indeed. Which is funny, seeing as I was just saying something similar about these kinds of relationships a little while ago.

The Academe: another victim in the War on Civilization, waged by Bushist Republicans who hate America. Oh well, I’m glad I got a chance to enjoy it before it became a complete joke. Sorry the younger folks won’t.

On Credentials

Please read Ian’s latest one out of the park. Simple and straightforward, I hope that some of you share this with your perhaps less aware friends about how the intellectual project has been very effectively hijacked by the right wing over the last two generations. I’ve seen this up close and personal, and it is a subject that can still make my blood boil. Just as I imagine my friends from/at Harvard must feel, whenever I remind them that Chimpy also has that flavor of sheepskin in his possession.

One thing I’d add to this excellent essay is that while on the one hand, lesser “intellectuals” have been steadily elevated to positions of prominence on Scaife funded wings, the other sad truth is that far too many competent and degreed people have been shut out of their rightful places in our society and economy.  Read more 

Motivation: Money, or Why Some Journalists Fellate Republicans So Much

Once again, the doom and gloom types look to have yet another reason to say, "I told you so," as the warmongers' whores do their part to scare America silly and the warmongers themselves enter Phase Two and make serious preparations for the "inevitable" war with Iran. Glenn asks some good questions about the whores, and their willingness to cheerlead us all into the unthinkable:

One of the critical issues which that disgraceful Michael Gordon article in yesterday's New York Times raises is the extent to which so many national journalists are so eager to prove to right-wing fanatics that they are sympathetic to their agenda. Years of being attacked by the Rush Limbaughs and Sean Hannitys and Bill O'Reillys as being part of the dreaded "liberal media" has created an obsequious need among many journalists to curry favor — through reporting which echoes right-wing narratives and/or by attacking the "liberal bias" of their fellow journalists — all in order to avoid being criticized by the right-wing noise machine.That is the defining symptom of The Mark Halperin Syndrome.
Manifestly, Moran — just like Halperin — is eager to show that he is pro-military and was desperate to convince Hewitt that he is not one of those dirty anti-American subversive liberals. To achieve that goal, Moran paraded in front of Hewitt and smeared his fellow journalists as being "deep[ly] anti-military" and claimed that they have a "dangerous" hostility to "American projection of power around the world." Identically, Halperin begged Hewitt not to"lump [him] in with people in [his] business who are liberally biased and don’t seem to care about it." 
The influence of The Mark Halperin Syndrome on our media cannot be overstated. There is a pervasive desire on the part of many national journalists to prove to the right-wing noise machine that they are not like their horrible, leftist, America-hating, anti-military journalistic colleagues which the Right has so successfully demonized.
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