Hoots, hollers and Hoover humor

Re “The shallow end of the think tank,” Opinion, Feb. 13

Bravo to Joel Stein for his hilarious account of a week at the Hoover Institution. But he is too kind when he alleges that Hoover fellows “are kind of like professors who don’t teach.” They are also unlike professors in that their political position is bought and paid for, period.

In truth, they are no more than propagandists for the organized right. If they want to call themselves “fellows,” whatever that may mean, fine. But we should not tolerate them affecting the title of “scholar,” as so many think tankers do. Nor should we equate them in any way with university professors, whose biases, at least, are their own.

TONY ZITO

Poughkeepsie, N.Y.

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Thank you, Joel Stein, for the first accurate piece on the Hoover Institution I’ve read in this paper in 40 years. This place gives appendixes a good name as a useful appendage.

DAVID DIETRICH

Temecula

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How wonderfully clever: Left-wing journalist from liberal newspaper wangles a fellowship at conservative think tank, accepts large honorarium, then trashes his hosts in a puerilely sarcastic column. That would all be perfectly fine, except that Stein grossly misrepresents the Hoover Institution. The fellows are, most assuredly, not “almost all extremely old, extremely white men.” It appears that Stein performed his demographic research during a single cocktail party and several days’ attendance at the quotidian coffee hour (frequented by, on average, fewer than 10% of fellows).

At Hoover, approximately 100 scholars explore ideas that shape positive change in public policy, ranging from taxation and pharmaceutical regulation to Iranian politics. Stein could have strolled into the office of any of the Hoover fellows conducting the kinds of research projects that have earned them accolades including Presidential Medals of Freedom, Nobel Prizes and memberships in such organizations as the American Academy of Arts and Sciences.

How pathetic that Stein squandered a week at an institution that welcomes visitors to contribute to its marketplace of ideas, an institution that the Economist characterized as “hard to match for sheer intellectual firepower.” Few of our media fellows are so foolish.

HENRY I. MILLER MD

The Hoover Institution

Stanford University

Palo Alto