Monday, December 15, 2008
Vandy Prof Sends Letter to Condi Criticizing State Department "Demoralization" and "Crawl" of Historical Records
Historian Robert Thomas Schwartz maintains that future of historical record in foreign policy "in serious jeopardy." Sounds like the absence of intellectual rigor that will characterize the Bush Library is going through its paces early at the State Department.
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Look. When the crayons break, it takes longer to color these sorts of things in.
ReplyDeleteOh Christ, you know what this is? An academic food fight. I used to see this kind of crap at the University of Chicago. Basically, this is several profs on a committee going out of their way to sharpen the knives against another prof in the best way they know how-by issuing a public "Dear Colleague" letter to a fellow academic, who just happens to be the outgoing Secretary of State. Also, the bitching will help to avoid any possible funding cuts to the Division that the Obama people might be thinking of during the Reign of Hillary.
ReplyDeleteYou think this is bad? You ought to see the long knives really come out: when they fight over what's for dessert at the annual Faculty Dinner: fruit cup or rice pudding.
Blood on the floor, baby...
Oh, please. First of all, the prof's name is *Thomas Schwartz*; he's a colleague and an old friend, and a serious scholar of solid integrity. Second, you may think that access to public documents is an "academic food fight" issue, but it is in fact critical to the work of historians. You guys can sneer all you want to at people whose jobs you don't understand; believe me, we're used to it. But to compare this to fights over a dinner menu is stupid and outrageous. It's the public memory we're talking about here; while I'm sure that there are plenty of people who'll be happy to see it swept under the rug, trifling with it serves the public ill.
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