Fair and Balanced

Coming Wednesday, another national security discussion from the liberal Brookings Institution:

Participants include Anthony Blinken, staff director for the Senate Foreign Relations Committee and an advisor to Senator Joseph R. Biden, Jr. (D-Del.); Rep. Pete Hoekstra (R-Mich.), the ranking member on the House Permanent Select Committee on Intelligence and an advisor to former Gov. Mitt Romney (R-Mass.); and Randy Scheunemann, a foreign policy and national security analyst who has been a long-time advisor to Senator John McCain (R-Ariz.). They will examine how the politically charged issues of extremism and terrorism can—and should—affect next year's election.

Hawkish Democrat on the left, conservative Republican on the right, and another conservative Republican in the center. Sounds great. Michael O'Hanlon, naturally, will moderate.

Comments

That's not a "national security" discussion. That's a "how can I improve my career chances inside the Beltway" discussion.

Posted by Garuda | September 17, 2007 9:53 AM

Hoekstra is a discredited fool: He was the guy teaming up with Rick Santorum in 2006 to argue that Saddam's vast stores of WMD were teleported away to Syria in March '03 and we needed to go get 'em.

Why bring that guy to a respectable panel? Why not one of the many homeless screaming people in the surrounding neighborhoods?

Posted by Dave | September 17, 2007 9:55 AM

I wonder if there's an inverse proportion between the number of anti-interventionalists you have on panels and the amount of grant money you get from certain moneyed interests?

Posted by JJ | September 17, 2007 10:00 AM

As long as O'Hanlon moderates and doesn't radicalize...

Posted by Doug | September 17, 2007 10:28 AM

Really, though. I wonder if there is some way you could graph this out... If you could show some sort of relationship between A) The number of anti-interventionalist analysts you have doing things at your institution, and B) The amount in grants you get from certain parties who'd be interested in suppressing that kind of analysis.

I bet a lot of the data wouldn't be surprising. But maybe some of it that would. It might show that Brookings is closer to AEI in certain respects than the CW would assume...

Posted by JJ | September 17, 2007 10:32 AM

I wonder what the Director of "Opportunity 08" sees as the big opportunity in '08?

Posted by Flamethrower | September 17, 2007 11:59 AM

" the liberal Brookings Institution"

Could you at least put "liberal" in scare-quotes when you do that? I mean, before Fox News, Brookings was known as a conservative think-tank. Now were told it's "liberal" so we won't notice it's not.

Posted by Avedon | September 17, 2007 1:12 PM

fair and balanced

Posted by della Rovere | September 17, 2007 1:21 PM

"I mean, before Fox News, Brookings was known as a conservative think-tank."
-Avedon

I don't think you are right about this.

Posted by Roberto | September 17, 2007 2:15 PM

I think when AEI started its manifesto accused Brookings of being liberal.

But its founding principles aren't particularly partisan:

"The Institute's early work was to help each government agency bring its administrative routines into line with modern business methods. They advised agencies on setting up modern accounting systems, filing systems and personnel manuals."

http://www.brookings.edu/lib/founding.htm

Doesn't exactly sound like a bastion of liberalism to me.

They've got a timeline and a history here: http://www.brookings.edu/lib/history_hp.htm

They did participate in the New Deal, but apparently with some reluctance.

My take is that Brookings isn't particularly liberal, but certain parties have had an interest in defining it that way.

Posted by JJ | September 17, 2007 2:52 PM

What I'm interested to know is, if Brookings is holding panels featuring no non-hawk views, is there a perverse incentive for them to do that? Or even if it's not, what is the reason? Because if they don't represent the non-interventionalist view at all, then how can they call themselves non-aligned?

Posted by JJ | September 17, 2007 3:09 PM

"I mean, before Fox News, Brookings was known as a conservative think-tank."
-Avedon

I don't think you are right about this.

Posted by Roberto | September 17, 2007 2:15 PM
*************************************************

I know you're not right about this.

I think the fair thing to say is Brookings is generally centrist, but historically skewed to the left due to the fact that Congress was in control of the Democrats for so long. I mean who wants to irritate the source of some of your funding or write reports that Congress ignores. I'd say Republican control from 94-06 has pushed them to the right some.

Posted by Campesino | September 17, 2007 5:38 PM

Brookings is NOT a "liberal" think tank. I wish people, including a blogger like Matt who knows better, would stop calling it one.

Posted by SocraticGadfly | September 18, 2007 12:22 AM

I can hear the feet fruitlessly beating the air, see the clenched fists and red faces as the anti-s proclaim 'reality.'

Posted by beneficial | September 18, 2007 11:00 AM

John Tabin:

Matt Yglesias has been on a kick lately of accusing the Brookings Institution in general, and Michael O'Hanlon in particular, of being insufficiently dovish. The other day he mocked an Opportunity08 panel featuring policy advisors to Joe Biden, Mitt Romney, and John McCain:

Hawkish Democrat on the left, conservative Republican on the right, and another conservative Republican in the center. Sounds great. Michael O'Hanlon, naturally, will moderate.

I just attended this panel, and afterwards I spoke to O'Hanlon and confirmed a rather salient fact: All of the major candidates were invited to send representatives. Obviously, the Democratic frontrunners declined the invitation because they have a vested interest in not putting their foreign policy advisors on a public stage -- any utterance more moderate than "cut and run yesterday" would invite a political attack from the left. That's not O'Hanlon's fault, though.

Posted by Al | September 19, 2007 2:32 PM