Election 2012
Obama said what? Rice profs get political in buzzed-about Rolling Stone, NewYork Times stories
Douglas Brinkley's interview with President Obama for Rolling Stone has garneredlots of attention.Rolling Stone/Facebook
Douglas BrinkleyWikipedia
Neal F. LanePhoto by Tommy LaVergne/Rice University
Anyone who likes to refer to academia as full of "liberal elites" got some new ammunition this week with two high-profile pieces from distinguished Rice professors.
Rice history professor Douglas Brinkley's interview with President Obama is featured on the cover of Rolling Stone this week, with some context from the author and presidential scholar on "how history will view his presidency."
Even before it hit newsstands, Douglas Brinkley's interview with Barack Obama for Rolling Stone was making headlines over the president's use of a PG-13 word to describe Romney.
Even before it hit newsstands, Douglas Brinkley's interview with Barack Obama for Rolling Stone was making headlines over the president's use of a PG-13 word to describe Romney.
After RS executive editor Eric Bates told Obama that his daughter was a fan, Obama said, "You know, kids have good instincts. … They look at the other guy and say, 'Well, that's a bullshitter, I can tell.'"
Aside from that colorful observation, the interview tackles familiar election territory: Obama's reaction to Romney's "47 percent" comments, his plans for a second term, the legacy of Obamacare and the president's thoughts on Ayn Rand and her influence among Republicans like Paul Ryan.
But Brinkley, a historian who isn't afraid to show his partisan leanings (remember this congressional throwdown?), also gives readers a tour through the last 100 years of American presidential politics and policy, from the long reign of liberalism after the Great Depression to the subsequent conservative backlash.
Viewed through the lens of history, Obama represents a new type of 21st-century politician: the Progressive Firewall. Obama, simply put, is the curator-in-chief of the New Deal, the Fair Deal, the New Frontier and the Great Society. When he talks about continued subsidies for Big Bird or contraceptives for Sandra Fluke, he is the inheritor of the Progressive movement's agenda, the last line of defense that prevents America's hard-won social contract from being defunded into oblivion."
But it's not just liberal arts professors diving into the presidential election. Neal F. Lane, a Rice professor of physics and astronomy and the former director of the National Science Foundation, authored an editorial in The New York Times on Sunday entitled "Science Is the Key to Growth."
While less explicitly partisan, Lane takes Romney to task for proposed cuts in his budget that could weaken scientific research and inhibit growth, contrasting those policies with support for science agencies by presidents Clinton and Obama.
[I]t is astonishing that Mr. Romney talks about economic growth while planning deep cuts in investment in science, technology and education. They are among the discretionary items for which spending could be cut 22 percent or more under the Republican budget plan, according to the Center on Budget and Policy Priorities.
According to the American Association for the Advancement of Science, the plan, which Mr. Romney has endorsed, could cut overall nondefense science, engineering, biomedical and technology research by a quarter over the next decade, and energy research by two-thirds.
Mr. Romney seems to have lost sight of the critical role of research investments not only in developing new medicines and cleaner energy sources but also in creating higher-skilled jobs.
The private sector can’t do it alone. We rely on companies to translate scientific discoveries into products. But federal investment in research and development, especially basic research, is critical to their success. Just look at Google, which was started by two graduate students working on a project supported by the National Science Foundation and today employs 54,000 people."
