Letters to the Editor
Published Letters: 211 Editor's Choice: 44
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Dean Edley's View of Academic Freedom
[Read the article: John Yoo: Spearhead or scapegoat?]
[Read more letters about this article: Here]The fact that the memo came from Boalt Hall got me to thinking about the controversy about the appointment of Erwin Chemerinsky as dean of the new UC Irvine Law School, and I ran across this article by Dean Edley written at the time (it will be recalled that UCI initially hired Chemerinsky, then rescinded the hire, then rehired him after a nonpartisan firestorm of criticism of the rescission).
http://berkeley.edu/news/berkeleyan/2007/09/19_edley.shtml
Dean Edley's views of academic freedom in this article, not the claim that UCI backed away from Chemerinsky for political reasons, are what is "risible." (his word) If you are establishing a new law school with no profile, and you hire a high profile dean like Chemerisnky, you do so for exactly the reason that you want him to continue to comment on public affairs, only now he will do with the byline, "Dean, UC Irvine Law School."
When you compare this to his statement about Yoo, you can really see the hypocrisy. Yoo was not defending an unpopular defendant or prosecuting a popular one. He was not giving the best legal advice possible to a client in a difficult situation. Instead, he was giving "advice" to order, assuming the conclusion and then using whatever thin arguments he could muster to fill in the blanks. And the advice was, in the main, being given in advance of the actions. An honorable lawyer would have reached the opposite conclusion and then, if told his advice was not welcome, resigned.
It is perfectly appropriate for an academy to subject Yoo's actions to intense criticism. It is more than appropriate to do so when the result is the death of many people and the significant destruction of the good opinion of the United States of America in the world.
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It's apparently all right for Clinton
[Read the article: Hey, Obama boys: Back off already!]
[Read more letters about this article: Here]to go off on a tangent, a complete bullshit tangent, when Obama makes a truthful statement about the feelings many Americans have about their economic circumstances. But calling bullshit on her, for the fiftieth time in this campaign, is apparently motivated solely by misogyny. Well, bullshit to that.
I'm sick and tired of all the messages Hillary and her surrogates has been sending out from her campaign lately. They are negative, they are unworthy, and they are wrong. If they were sent out by a white male, I'd like them not one whit better, or one whit worse. She is responsible for the campaign she is running.
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What a long strange trip it's been
[Read the article: Hey, Obama boys: Back off already!]
[Read more letters about this article: Here]I've now read all the letters. I think I started when there were fewer than 100 pages, and it's only just now calmed down (presumably the next day's content is coming up by now on Salon).
I'm reminded of a piece James Thurber (a self-proclaimed misogynist) wrote called "Oh, What a Lovely Generalization!" If I can make one generalization about the commenters, there sure are a lot who deal in generalizations, of both stripes, though the Clinton supporters seemed to overgeneralize more about Obama supporters, while the Obama supporters generalized more about the Traister article.
There was also a lot of thoughtful commentary. I certainly learned a lot about the perceptions of many about the coverage of the two campaigns, and I also learned a lot about the relative positions and actions of the two candidates.
Politics has a tendency to make fanatics out of lukewarm supporters; that is the nature of the beast. An ACLU board member once told me that in many of their most controversial cases, the board had voted 26-22 in favor, with five board members threatening to resign if the organization didn't take their side. Only after the vote, the organization would be in lockstep in favor of the action they had voted on, because they believed in majority rule.
That's how I feel about this election. I had an early opportunity to support Obama, which I turned down. I supported two other candidates (Dodd and then Edwards) until we were left with just the two, and made up my mind the evening before our caucus. My wife, entirely independently, made up her mind at the same time. In both cases, it was a close decision, because at the time neither of us had anything bad really to say about either candidate. In the rest of my family, my parents who live in Florida both voted for Hillary (not that they had any other candidates on their ballot), and everyone else supports Obama, including my 85-year old, longtime feminist mother-in-law.
As I think I've stated before, my conclusion that I would support Obama was based in large part on the fact that John McCain was going to be the Republican candidate, and my belief that Obama alone can engage him on the war without restraint. My own Senator Patty Murray could have done the same had she wanted to run for President, but Senator Clinton cannot (as my other Senator, Maria Cantwell, could not), because she voted for the AUF. As Glenn Greenwald has shown in these same pages, antiwar support is huge in this country, and an election campaign run on the direct contrast between two positions on the war can succeed for a Democrat.
As time has gone on, Senator Clinton has made it more and more clear that she does not want to have that campaign, but instead a campaign based on gaffe. I'm sick of such campaigns.
I don't think anyone here has mentioned the forums the senators appeared before on CNN last night, discussing mainly matters of faith. If anyone wishes to see what many have referred to about how Senator Clinton will change the way she speaks depending on her audience, I commend you to watch the footage involving abortion. See if you see the word "choice" used.