Committee on Anti-Liebermanisms

Readers of this publication might not be surprised to find that some academics didn’t take too well to Independent Senator Joe Lieberman’s (Conn.) decision to campaign on behalf of the Republican candidate this year. Even after Barack Obama’s election success, some professors feel the need to continue to vent their distaste for Lieberman.

“What new committee should Joe Lieberman be appointed to chair?,” asks The American Prospect in its January-February 2009 issue.

“A subcommittee of his Homeland Security Committee—looking into citizen disloyalty,” answered Curtis Gans, Director of the Center for the Study of the American Electorate at American University.

But many professors don’t consider Bill Ayers, a former member of the domestic terrorist group the Weather Underground, to be disloyal at all. Instead, they signed a petition to support his scholarship.

“The Committee on Party-Switching and Republocratic Affairs,” answered University of Virginia professor Dr. Larry Sabato, previously dubbed as the “quotemeister.”

“Commentators like Sabato who speak frequently to reporters have earned a reputation as easy quotes or dial-a-quotes,” wrote Mark Francis Cohen for the American Journalism Review in 2005. “Harried reporters on deadline can phone these scholars at any time to get a quick and pithy comment on a remarkable range of subjects, from missile defense to the Mississippi Delta. And in an age in which government officials often speak anonymously or on background, reporters depend on analysts with real names to provide information—even if they don’t always have much of substance to contribute.”

Bethany Stotts is a staff writer at Accuracy in Academia.