Last Friday, I attended the American Political Science Association convention at Washington, DC's Mariott Wardman Park and Omni Shoreham Hotels. It was huge. For fans of what Washingtonians call "show business for ugly people," it seemed something like a buttoned-down version of the Cannes Film Festival. The APSA convention motto: "Mobilizing Democracy." (I had my mobile phone with me, does that count?)
At registration, I spotted Washington Post columnist David Broder and Princeton University professor Cornel West. The 0800 am session on Bush's presidential leadership style, in which Princeton political science professor Fred Greenstein predicted that Bush would come back from outrage over Hurricane Katrina in the same way he came back after 9/11 was packed--Broder was in the audience, as was Brookings Institution political guru Thomas Mann, among other American politological luminaries. Washington Post reporter John Harris shared a scoop, as he contrasted the governing styles of Bush and Clinton, then revealed that Hillary likes Bush Junior's style and hopes to emulate it. Yikes!
I missed seeing Republican bigwigs Elliott Abrams, and Bill Kristol, or former Clinton advisor William Galston, who appeared at some other panels, (I guess they aren't too busy doing their jobs to bloviate with academics) but did have a chance to drop in on a panel about the Bush doctrine in Iraq.
It featured John Hopkins professor Francis Fukuyama, who appeared with Princeton's John Ikenberry, and the University of Chicago's John Mearsheimer. The banner hanging above their heads read: "APSA: Networking a World of Scholars."
It was strange to hear Fukuyama, one of the signatories of the famous (or notorious) 1998 letter to President Clinton calling for the American overthrow of Saddam Hussein, now mocking the Bush doctrine as an equivalent to the Wizard of Oz scene where the munchkins come out singing "Ding, dong, the Witch is dead..." Fukuyama may be right now, or he may have been right then, or he may be wrong twice in a row. Could he have been right twice in a row? Who knows? Maybe the Bushies thought it was the end of history, or something? I admit that I don't know...
I do know that I certainly would want to think twice before I would trust anything Fukuyama has to say about politics or world affairs.
The worst was yet to come. Professor Ikenberry was icky in the extreme, he actually used the term "final solution" in connection with Bush's policies in Iraq, a creepy academic type, who thought he was so cute and clever. Ikenberry appeared so amoral and calculated that he made Fukuyama look good by comparison. Mearsheimer seemed to be the most "realistic" of the bunch, arguing that the Bush doctrine is dead, though no one will admit it. This, at least, is a testable hypothesis. We have three years to see if he is right or wrong...
Most interesting--after the book exhibit, which really was great, all publishers were there, and some gave away free books, which I'll discuss as I read them--was the Claremont Institute's panel on bloggers and politics, concentrating on Powerline's coverage of the Dan Rather 60 Minutes II scandal. Both John Hinderaker and Paul Mirengoff were there, and there was a lively debate about blogs versus newspapers with Jeff Gertz of The Washington Times and the Boston Globe's Peter Canellos. Canellos gave the liberal line pretty well, and Hinderaker agressively challenged him. It was almost like watching Crossfire. (You can see Hinderaker v. Canellos in the picture above.)
At that same session, I learned that author and US News correspondent Michael Barone is now a blogger, since he was introduced from the audience as a member of the tribe.
Overall, I'd say reporters at APSA were more interesting than professors, and bloggers at least as interesting as journalists. And before attending APSA, I didn't realize that Bush political appointees cared what political science professors thought (a mistake, IMHO).
