Peter Feaver: From Duke to the White House

My weekly political science department basketball game is in the news:

A central figure behind President Bush's new victory-in-Iraq strategy is a charismatic conservative sprung from Duke University's left-leaning political science department.

Peter D. Feaver, 43, is open-minded but a tough debate foe, his colleagues say. Students pack his classes. His international policy lectures earned him the university's top teaching award four years ago.

Then, there's the man on the basketball court: a pickup player who doesn't pass, questions every out-of-bounds call and happily hurls up bricks that clang off the rim.

"He's a darn gunner," said Michael Munger, chairman of Duke's political science department and Feaver's occasional teammate.

Munger could just as well be describing the political scientist's approach to his work.

To elaborate, Feaver works for the National Security Council and is using his research into the factors determining popular support for wars to help shape the White House's PR strategy. Apparently, he's now pretty famous. Why else would reporters care about Feaver basketball stories? Another sign that he matters: the looney lefties are after him. My prediction is that Feaver going to succeed Paul Wolfowitz as the person in the administration who leftists think is an evil puppetmaster. Let me assure you, however, that he's a very nice guy. As for his research, I haven't read enough of it to comment.

(In case anyone cares, I also took a class from Feaver's co-author, Chris Gelpi, and his other co-author on the research in question, Jason Reifler, is a former fellow graduate student who I'm currently collaborating with on other research.)

Comments

[Anodyne]

"... the looney lefties are after him."

Was this supposed to be a joke? If not, why was the first link characterized by the word looney? Just wondering.

[Brendan Nyhan]

Oops, I thought it was democrats.com due to the "General Peter Feaver" stuff. Took down the link.

[suspicious left-leaning acadamic]

"a pickup player who doesn't pass, questions every out-of-bounds call and happily hurls up bricks that clang off the rim."

A little competitiveness is probably a good thing, but never passing and shooting bricks? Does anybody else find this an ironic indication of the undemocratic and utimately destructive tendencies and policies of the current administration and its supporters?

[anodyne]

Ok, Brendan.

I accept that Kos diaries are uneven and reflect opinions that are all over the map. That’s what happens in large online communities across the political spectrum. If you’re going to choose one diary or newspaper story to criticize because you find the arguments in it poorly reasoned, empirically unsupportable, or reflective of a wider misunderstanding about Feaver and Gelpi’s research and/or involvement in the formulation of administration policy, then IMHO it would make for a better conversation if you would address the issues involved rather than dismiss the author of the diary as a loony.