Miss Emily Mills, fearless sifter and winnower that she is, is aghast that a respected University of Wisconsin political scientist would oversee public opinion polling for the Wisconsin Policy Research Institute -- a "partisan" organization. Unclean! Unclean!
UW political science professor Ken Goldstein contracted with WPRI for $13,000 worth of funding in exchange for a platform to showcase his work and for hands-on experience for his graduate students.
Now, WPRI endorses no political candidates and no political party and can hardly be considered "partisan." It does believe in fiscal restraint, individual responsibility, and results-oriented policy making. (I've written for its magazine Wisconsin Interest.) In other words, it is conservative: therefore, unfit for association with the putatively non-partisan University of Wisconsin (Emily's Post: 3-9-10).
Emily asks: "Isn't it simply not worth the inevitable appearance of bias for the public university?"
The hyper-partisan Scot Ross sanctimoniously professes to be "worried about the credibility of the poll -- and more importantly, the credibility of the UW."
This Ross fellow fronts the 527 McCain-Feingold loophole organization called "One Wisconsin Now," a naked Democrat(ic) Party attack machine. (Find your own damn link.) Those attacks that the DPW regard as too over the top are subcontracted to One Wisconsin. (When do we want it? Now!)
UW Interim Provost Julie Underwood told the Associated Press she approved the arrangement with WPRI because she saw it as part of the school's service mission and didn't want to discriminate against WPRI based on its viewpoint. Partisans like Scot Ross have no such qualms.
A state university haven for radicals
Worried about bias? Worried about credibility? So, how to explain the UW Department of Sociology and its Havens Center.
Havens is named after a dead white man "whose life and work embodied ... progressive political commitment ..."
The good ol' Lefties at Havens are bringing a couple of speakers to the campus this month. One is a writer for The Nation, the other editor of something called Left Business Observer, which holds that our 200+ years of "experiment" with free-market economics has been a financial and social disaster.
Also at Havens: "The future of hip hop scholarship." (I didn't know it had a present.) There is so much to be learned from the hip hoppers. Like, mainly, how not to conduct oneself.
Don't miss a lecture on "Gender Dimensions of the Global Financial Crisis." (Why aren't there any female Bernard Madoffs or Kenneth Lays?) Where would liberals be without race and gender?
There he is, right on the home page, that sainted old Leftie, Howard Zinn, "the professor whose Marxist People's History of the United States is now a principal indoctrination tool of the college Left," writes James Lewis for the American Thinker. Zinn also promoted "Scholars for 9/11 Truth."
But wait, as the late Billy Mays would say, there's more. Someone who has yet to die: Noam Chomsky in "The Role of the Radical Intellectual" is coming to State Street. Yes, Noam Chomsky, the fellow who said "If the Nuremberg laws were applied, then every post-war American president would have been hanged."
"Social justice," "greening the globe," and the "unequal gender division of labor," are all grist for the UW Havens Center mill. Would it surprise you to learn that the home page of the Havens Center uses the word "radical" five times?
In other words, the Department of Sociology is a School for radical liberal/progressives.
At least, WPRI is paying its own way. We the taxpayers subsidize the UW Department of Socialism.
Stunned and flabbergasted
AP says Professor Goldstein:
... who is well-regarded for his work tracking campaign ad spending, said he has been shocked by the attacks on his work by liberals. He noted he angered conservatives during the 2008 presidential race when the Big Ten Battleground Poll he co-directed predicted correctly that Barack Obama would win Indiana.
"I'm stunned, flabbergasted, amazed - every single adjective you can come up with," he said. "I don't want to be overly dramatic or be a victim, but I pour my heart and soul into the University of Wisconsin. Teaching. Research. Service. Everything possible. And then to see this reaction is stunning."
But that's how liberal/progressives play, professor. Welcome to the real world.
Obama's O'boorish behavior
In a law school Q and A session, U.S. Supreme Court Chief Justice Roberts recalled the court's unseemly hectoring at State of the Union address in January:
"The image of having the members of one branch of government standing up, literally surrounding the Supreme Court, cheering and hollering while the court -- according the requirements of protocol -- has to sit there expressionless, I think is very troubling."
Roberts also questioned the attendance of Supreme Court Justices at the State of the Union speeches. "I'm not sure why we're there," he said.
For the next State of the Union, tell President Obama you're washing your hair that day.
Platinum subscriber bonus material
- Against it before he was for it. Sen. Russ Feingold now favors using reconciliation to pass ObamaCare, he told Democrats in La Crosse. A year ago, the senator said, "Reconciliation is intended for legislation that reduces the deficit. I have strongly opposed past efforts to use reconciliation to address policy matters, such as drilling in the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge. It wasn't appropriate then; it isn't appropriate now." (Congressional Record, S.4289, 4/2/09)
- A biometric national I.D. card? I don't care if it's in the name of immigration reform, good conservatives should be aghast. Lindsay Graham, what are you thinking?!
- Dick Morris is sleaze distilled but I like his analogy: The Democrats' Pickett's Charge on healthcare.
- Hey kids! Be sure to bookmark Stately Blaska Manor so you can visit often!
Today's Chuckle
As long as the research is "non-partisan." (Thanks, Charlie)
