POLITICAL LEANINGS
Having watched Martin Anderson’s participation in the Republican national “spin doctoring” campaign that followed the Bentsen-Quayle TV debate, I now find it extraordinarily difficult to take at face value anything Anderson says on the subject of American politics. Perhaps I am being overly critical, but I strongly detected in Anderson’s review of C. Menges’ “Inside the National Security Council” a clear plug for George Bush as foreign policy maker and all-around take-charge guy.
Academic specialists gain credibility as a result of their professional analytical detachment. Sadly, Anderson seems to have lost sight of this truth. For him to subtly plug Bush in a book review--after disingenuously declaring on national television that Dan Quayle was a “clear winner” in his debate with Lloyd Bentsen--is nothing short of outrageous. Sadly, it serves to reveal the growing partisan debasement of the currency of political analysis in this country.
RICHARD BAUM
DEPARTMENT OF
POLITICAL SCIENCE
UCLA
LOS ANGELES
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