I’ll Take Foreign Affairs for Dummies, Alex
So, there I was listening to the News Hour with Jim Leher on my iPod, when I heard this exchange, emphasis mine:
GWEN IFILL: Two discussions on Capitol Hill these days, one is about conservation. The other we heard Sen. Specter talk today about an oil windfall tax. Are any of those starters at all, in your opinion, Professor?
ROBERT LIEBER: Well, conservation has to be part of the package — energy efficiency. I think one of the reasons why it’s been so devilishly hard to get things done is that almost anything you want to do as part of a broader package steps on somebody’s sectoral interest, like the auto industry, or pressure group interest, for instance, opposition to drilling in Alaska because of the caribou.
From remarks like this I could tell right away his knowledge of the Arctic Reserve went about as deep as a Bush 41 soundbite (”It’s about jobs, not caribou!” Or something like that.) Needless to say, those of us who are dedicated to preserving the coastal region of ANWR, don’t see it in the strawman term Prof Lieber uses. He might as well say that those of us who were against the invasion of Iraq, were so inclined because we wanted to save the camels.
So, I started to wonder who this Robert Lieber is. I mean, what are his credentials in the area of energy, conservation, and the environment?
Here’s what his bio says:
ROBERT J. LIEBER is Professor of Government and International Affairs at Georgetown University, where he has previously served as Chair of the Government Department and as Interim Chair of Psychology.
While it’s interesting to know that he chaired both the Government and Psychology Departments, it’s not really clear to me what that has to do with ANWR. Again, given his reductio ad absurdum comments, I’d have to say, very little.
So, I did a little more digging on Prof Lieber, and came up with this: ( The Chronicle Review )
The ruins of Saddam Hussein’s shattered tyranny may provide additional evidence of chemical weapons and other weapons of mass destruction, but one poisonous by-product has already begun to seep from under the rubble. It is a conspiracy theory purporting to explain how the foreign policy of the world’s greatest power, the United States, has been captured by a sinister and hitherto little-known cabal.
A small band of neoconservative (read, Jewish) defense intellectuals, led by the “mastermind,” Deputy Secretary of Defense Paul Wolfowitz (according to Michael Lind, writing in the New Statesman), has taken advantage of 9/11 to put their ideas over on an ignorant, inexperienced, and “easily manipulated” president (Eric Alterman in The Nation), his “elderly figurehead” Defense Secretary (as Lind put it), and the “dutiful servant of power” who is our secretary of state (Edward Said, London Review of Books).
Oh, I get it. Lieber is one of those intellectual interventionist neo-conservatism deniers. Who were dead wrong on Iraq, but still get a spot on PBS when they have a book to plug. But the real problem are the caribou people keeping us from being independent of Gulf State oil.
I hope you’ll excuse me, Prof Lieber. I’ve got to go recite chimeras to my unicorn.
