Reading this, no one can doubt that Stanford is mightily committed to diversity.

In selecting Rumsfeld for Hoover status, Stanford has reached to the bottom of the barrel to balance out the mostly brilliant and positive contributors to humanity that operate from their wonderous institution. What a blight on the record of an otherwise fine institution!

Rumsfield definitely belongs in a tower - along with another doubtful non-hero, George Schultz) - but it's doubtful that anyone who has followed their horrific, power-mongering careers - careers that claim "success" over the blood-stained bodies of their hapless victims - would imagine for a minute that any tower they inhabit wouldn't be surrounded by guards - to keep the both of them and their poor-excuse-for-strategic-thinking ideas as far away from the rest of humanity as possible.

Welcome Mr. Rumsfeld. Thank you Stanford for bucking the vocal liberal minority who can't see the truth because they are filled with such hate.

We'll just give him a dose of Palo Alto liberalism, and have him visit the Opportunity Center.

Such an appointment would never happen at UC Berkeley. Go Bears Football!

Unbelievable! Why doesn't he go back to Georgetown University Law Center, hurry up and finish his law degree, and get nominated by our President to the Supreme Court of the United States... instead of hanging out in our neighborhood.

I agree with Resident. It takes a lot of guts to come to such a tolerant and accepting community as this..of everyone but Republicans!

Thank you Mr. Rumsfeld! You rock!

He certainly did rock Iraq. And the Iraqis are still being drummed into the ground. I suppose I should never be surprised by anything the Hoover Institution does, but this move is truly stunning. It underscores how the Hollow Men of Hoover are even more focused on taking care of their own than they are on protecting the facade of quasi respectability they've managed to build around their shabby institution.

Transplant,

I wish you were right about Cal.

Unfortunately, John "Torture Memo" Yee is now a law professor at Berkeley's Boalt Hall.

You'd expect this sort of revolting situation from Stanford. Don't forget that in addition to Rummy, the Hoover has hired war criminal General John Abizaid, too. He's the CENTCOM general who came after Franks before Petreaus. In other words, the people of Fallujah were genocided under Abizaid's leadership, including reports of white phosphorous attacks on citizens.

But to have John Yee at Cal makes me wonder who smoothed the way for this monster in the UC system.

Wouldn't it be grand if Cal hired Norm Finkelstein now that he has been denied tenure at DePaul in the wake of a distortion campaign led by Harvard's Dershowitz...

"Rumsfeld to take position..."

Okay, Mr. Rumsfeld. Assume the position.

I believe the standard of apropriatness of comments should be the same for pro and con - apparently they are not. Pity.

George Schultz and Caspar Weinberger--Bechtel; Rumsfeld's close ties to Cheney and thus, Halliburton. Soon Condie will be back. How much will Stanford profit from these appointments?

The Hoover Institute, along with dozens of other think tanks, form a vast, incestuous network that fills its ranks with individuals who wear many hats. Moving freely from think tank to think tank, these individuals are also allowed move freely from public sector to private sector and back again.

These same think-tankers make a point to teach/recruit in elite schools, play media pundits, participate in "authoritative" studies, and in some cases spend years serving other governments. Before returning to work for the GWB administration, both Richard Perle and Douglas Feith were registered foreign agents who represented the Turkish government!

[Post removed by Palo Alto Online staff.]

World class folk do world class work. Besides, Rumsfeld landed jets on a carrier deck. That's a hard way to demonstrate one's commitment. The Hoover has a long way to go to offset their failure to develop comprehensive citizens of their students.

The Hoover Institute would hire Radovan Karadžić if they could get him a Visa and immunity.

Allow me to give you another example of the problem with think tanks.

Take the case of Judy Miller, the New York Times reporter who used her access to top U.S. government officials to insist that Iraq had WMDs. She was also involved in the Plame affair.

Well guess what?

Judy now works for the Manhattan Institute, whose web site boasts of the media outlets that are now publishing Judy's work or using her as a TV pundit:

Web Link

"She currently writes for several publications, including The Wall Street Journal, Los Angeles Times, and New York Sun. She is also a frequent commentator on national security issues and has appeared on numerous television and radio shows, such as MSNBC's Hardball with Chris Matthews and the O'Reilly Factor."

The Manhattan Institute also hired TV pundit Bill Kristol to serve on its board of trustees:

Bill is involved with several other think tanks:

Web Link

"Kristol first made his mark as leader of the Project for the Republican Future, a conservative think tank, and rose to fame as a conservative opinionmaker during the battle over the Clinton health care plan. In his first of what would become legendary strategy memos circulated among Republican policymakers, Kristol said the party should "kill", not amend or compromise on, the Clinton health care plan. The success of the Clinton proposal, he warned, would “re-legitimize middle-class dependence for ‘security’ on government spending and regulation,” and “revive ... the Democrats, as the generous protector of middle-class interests.” Kristol's memo immediately became important in uniting Republicans behind total opposition to Clinton's reform plan."

...

"After the Republican sweep of both houses of Congress in 1994 Kristol established, along with neoconservative John Podhoretz and with financing from Rupert Murdoch, the neo-conservative periodical The Weekly Standard. In 1997, he founded, with Robert Kagan, the Project for the New American Century (PNAC). He is also a member of the neo-conservative think tank the American Enterprise Institute (AEI) from which the Bush administration has borrowed over two dozen members to fill various government offices and panels. Kristol is currently chairman of PNAC and editor of The Weekly Standard.

People who chose public service will, surprisingly, serve in public service jobs. There are Think Tanks of every frequency of the spectrum. Again, the left wants to silence the right. Understandable, when this week's display of Leftsqueek is compared to rational discourse.