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Mr. Brown, you need to read "

Reader comment on item: CAIR and the Council on Foreign Relations Endorse Mearsheimer/Walt

Submitted by S Silverstein (United States), Aug 27, 2006 at 20:37

Carl Brown is an intelligent man with some original and important work to his credit; in a 1996 review of one of his books, I praised him as "the Middle East's historian with the widest vision." What impaired his judgment, what brought him down so low?

The esteemed professor Brown writes of the Walt-Mearsheimer paper: "Attacked for everything from being "sloppy scholarship" to anti-Semitic, this article is clearly neither. It is an argument advanced by two scholars..."

What has impaired judgment? It may have to do with a recent trend by those with an agenda to simply declare issues "obvious" and ignore other arguments entirely, say, for example, Judge Anna Diggs Taylor:

Powerline's Scott Johnson: "On the issue of the legality of warrantless interception of enemy communications, for example, it is entirely conclusory. It does not address precedent. It assumes its conclusion, essentially framing the issue as whether the president can break the law. It simply asserts that the NSA eavesdropping program is "obviously in violation of the Fourth Amendment" -- apparently because it is warrantless. (Wrong.) She sagely observes that the "President of the United States is himself created by that same Constitution" -- you know, the one with the Fourth Amendment that she apparently thinks requires warrants in all cases."

Brown also ignores any and all arguments to the contrary with his blanket statement that "Attacked for everything from being "sloppy scholarship" to anti-Semitic, this article is clearly neither."

Two can play the same game. It's pretty "obvious" Brown is a technology illiterate, unaware of informational computing that can rapidly allow fact confirmation and checking to anyone who bothers to try. I would put money on his not having done this regarding the Walt-Mearsheimer paper. It's also obvious that while Brown has some works to his credit, those days are likely over.

His statement that the Walt-Mearsheimer paper is "obviously not sloppy scholarship" shows that while he once may have understood what that meant, he no longer does differentiate good scholarship from garbage. His unqualified praise of this paper on the apparent basis of its being advanced "by two scholars" is a permanent fatal flaw towards his credibility, as is a surgeon's killing a patient by forgetting the tenets of the sterile technique.

I, for one, will find it hard to trust any work emanating from "scholars" who have praised this paper, in the same way that I do not respect those who praised ""Transgressing the Boundaries: Towards a Transformative Hermeneutics of Quantum Gravity," another paper of good pedigree but of rather lousy scholarship - by design in that case, but a different design that Walt and Mearsheimer seemed to have in mind.

Submitting....

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Reader comments (14) on this item

Title Commenter Date Thread
2Council on Foreign Relations and Tack's Tackle Shop [3630 words]John WallaceNov 28, 2008 08:09144010
I agree [2 words]ScottOct 17, 2006 21:2560773
CFR as the Council of Fawning Relations - Welcoming conspiracy theorists and terrorist despots [148 words]Ben van de PolderSep 21, 2006 22:5756916
The CFR has a long history of conspiring agianst our nation. [120 words]markOct 15, 2009 09:5056916
Realism vs. Reality [410 words]AlexSep 21, 2006 17:5356878
Danger of Islam from within [250 words]Kelvan KamSep 1, 2006 00:0054542
The western world is going to pay a huge price for allowing Muslims to roam freely in their nations [204 words]Stephen PhillipsSep 9, 2006 00:3054542
Agree with Dr. Pipes [369 words]
w/response from Daniel Pipes
David SternlightAug 31, 2006 23:0354537
CAIR AND THE COMING POLICY SHIFT [216 words]roert fusfeldAug 31, 2006 20:5754526
Mearsheimer / Walt [77 words]
w/response from Daniel Pipes
GBAug 31, 2006 11:3854472
what twenty mllion can buy [59 words]leo solomonSep 1, 2006 09:0554472
re: Foreign Policy [125 words]a readerAug 31, 2006 10:1854463
Mr. Brown, you need to read " [445 words]S SilversteinAug 27, 2006 20:3754103
Misleading statement by Dr. Pipes... [118 words]Amjad M. KhanAug 25, 2006 18:5254006

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