One might also note, Glenn, that these "scholars in residence" at the various thinktanks, policy institutes, research centers and all the other infrastructure of the rapidly expanding technocratic pseudo-scholarly community which produces what passes for "serious thought" in Washington DC these days rarely extend the same consideration that they demand for themselves as "scholars" to actual scholars working and writing in the larger academic community.

In fact, they often heap scorn upon the professoriate for being out of touch, beholden to their subjects or subject area, prone to insidious forms of criticism and theory that keeps them from being Very Serious (which basically in short means short-circuiting critical thought and accepting the CW of the elite), anti-American, obtuse, idealistic, and so and so forth. Just look at the beating that Juan Cole - a (non-ironic) serious scholar of the Middle East - has taken over the years despite the fact that he was right about nearly everything, and his critics were almost universally wrong. The way in which Cole and other scholars of Islam, the Middle East, the military (i.e. Andrew Bacevich), and colonialism and imperialism were dismissed was precisely in the language that they were "mere" scholars who could not hope to understand larger issues of policy and so on.

I find this doubly ironic because the much-vaunted think tankers are not subject to the same intellectual checks and balances as academics in the larger world. I won't pretend that the tenure system is some utopian system that perfectly regulates the academic world. Any number of frauds and pseudo-scholars have been able to rise to positions of prominence though connections and groupthink. But the tenure system - and other modes of academic governance - are far more rigid than those that prevail in the world of thinktankery.

The denizens of think tanks etc. are rarely subject to serious peer review. Often their writings are simply peer-reviewed by other members of their own think tank, who if not necessarily friends, can be expected to hold similar ideas. I would love to see a think tanker attempt to publish their work in one of the peer reviewed specialist journals.

They are not expected to have any command of languages, or to know the language used by those they study. So few speak or read Arabic, or Chinese, or Persian, or even Spanish.

They are not expected to have the deep contextual knowledge that frames their arguments. Their knowledge is frequently narrow and ideologically filtered.

They are also not expected to reflect on the problems of scholarship, epistemology, evidence, discipline and other forms of self-reflective criticism necessary to situate one's own work in the longer history of one's discipline.

Much of think tank writing references works which are often, themselves, already secondary works. They almost never have to do actual archival research or fieldwork. Most of what they write is third-generation meta commentary on the works of more gifted scholars, or a glorified fisking of others' works to support their already-formulated policy prescriptions (in this it is much like Roy Edroso and Brad Reed's take on conservative "art criticism.")

Finally, they do not need to go through tenure review which, despite right-wing canards to the contrary, is a fairly rigid procedure that has a better track record of weeding out frauds and phonies than the rules that seem to govern the think tank world.

In short, think tank "scholars" demand the kind of deference that they very rarely extend to actual scholars working in mainline academic settings.

But I suppose pointing out the hypocrisy of the Very Serious is hardly an original observation. After all, Glenn, day in and day out you do the unglorious work of exposing our Wise Men for the fools they really are.

Just thought I, a resident of the world of academics, would toss on this additional observation on the "thinking" of the "think" tanks.

The same thing that should have been done about Iraq:

General Strike.

And I don't mean by unions. I mean by the citizenry.

Perhaps I am misty-eyed for that old lefty tactic, but it can be effective. On Day X (March 20, 2003), anti-war protesters in San Francisco paralyzed the city for days. I was part of a group that paralyzed Portland for about 36 hours.

The problem was that we picked the wrong targets - San Franciscans and Portlanders overwhelmingly opposed the war from the get go - and we did not have the numbers. The only people out on the streets were the lefties and dirty fuckin hippies and pacifists and committed religious folks like Quakers and Catholic Worker types. Once the police rounded up the hardcore it was over. There were not enough people to flood the jails.

What we need is mass organization of ordinary people - who, judging by the polls, overwhelmingly oppose this war, hate this president and most likely oppose war on Iran - to get out into the streets. The effect of soccer moms and average folks blocking streets - in, say, DC - would be electric.

I know people say that this couldn't be done - but if everyone who was against an attack on Iran committed themselves, and committed to talking to all their neighbors and coworkers and family members, even if only 1 in 25 or 1 in 50 people agreed to go with you, this country could be shut down.

Politicians have, and will continue to, fail us. It is up to us now.

As the Wobs used to say, direct action gets the goods!