Richard C. Knocke
In the Tank?
By PAUL KRUGMAN
Even cynics were a bit startled by the revelation that Justice Clarence
Thomas's wife has been employed by the Heritage Foundation to gather résumés
for potential appointments in the next administration. But let me leave
ethical issues to the experts and focus on a different question suggested by
the story: To what extent will a Bush administration, if that's what we're
about to have, be staffed by people from Heritage and its sister
institutions? Are we about to enter an era of government by professional
ideologues?
Heritage describes itself as a think tank, a term originally applied to
nonpolitical institutions like the RAND Corporation. Whether it is really
appropriate for organizations like Heritage depends on what you mean by the
word "think." Most of Washington's so-called think tanks don't have to ponder
the issues - they already know the answers. The Heritage mission statement
makes no bones about it: the institution's purpose is to "formulate and
promote conservative public policies." Can you imagine any circumstances
under which Heritage researchers might recommend a tax increase, or a new
environmental regulation? I didn't think so.
Since the policy recommendations that come out of Heritage, or the Cato
Institute, or even the American Enterprise Institute are so predictable, what
purpose do these organizations serve? Good question.
The important think tanks are all very much institutions of the right. Jon
Corzine notwithstanding, left- wing multimillionaires are not exactly the
norm. So liberal think tanks don't have anything like the resources or the
influence of their right-wing counterparts. Some might cite the Brookings
Institution as an exception - but Brookings isn't liberal the way the
conservative think tanks are conservative. Put it this way: Even A.E.I., the
most moderate of the big right-wing think tanks, lists Newt Gingrich among
its "scholars."
The glory years of the think tanks were the 1970's, when they provided an
alternative to what was perceived - with some justice - as the liberal bias
of academia. The think tanks were places where neoconservative intellectuals
could think the unthinkable and say the unsayable. They provided a new
element in the national dialogue, to such an extent that Daniel Patrick
Moynihan famously declared that "the Republicans have become the party of
ideas." And of course the think tanks provided the intellectual shock troops
for the Reagan revolution.
But that was a long time ago. Neoconservative ideas are no longer radical;
they have become trite. And the intellectual need for an alternative set of
institutions is itself far less apparent than it was. In the field I know
best, economics, academia no longer has a recognizable liberal bias; free
markets command great respect, and many of the best-known professors are also
committed Republicans. Nonetheless, the think tanks are bigger and better
financed than ever. What is their purpose?
Mainly they have become waiting rooms for the conservative nomen klatura - a
class of intellectuals among whom talent is much less important than
political reliability. The people whose résumés Mrs. Thomas has been helping
put together are professional ideologues, who currently earn a living by
repeating conservative slogans but hope that they will soon be under
secretaries and assistant secretaries.
This hope doesn't have to be fulfilled. While a few Friends of Bill got
special consideration in the early years, the Clinton administration was in
general staffed by people notable more for their ability than their
ideological fervor. In the economic area, the administration attracted some
very impressive talent, including at least one likely Nobel laureate (Joseph
Stiglitz, chief economic adviser from 1995 to '97).
George W. Bush could do the same - staffing his administration with able
Republicans from the business and academic worlds. But will he?
If Mr. Bush becomes president, the thing to watch is whom he appoints - not
so much to the glamorous cabinet positions as the less visible but crucial
second and third tiers. If those slots are filled by people from Wall Street
and Stanford, people who have made their reputations independent of their
politics, good. If they are filled from Heritage and Cato and A.E.I., forget
the rhetoric - he's a divider, not a uniter.
http://www.nytimes.com/2000/12/13/opinion/13KRUG.html
Washingtonpost.com: Scaife -- Funding Father of the Right
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-srv/politics/special/clinton/stories/scaife
050299.htm
Free Republic - Forum http://www.freerepublic.com/forum/latest.htm
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