Someone Send Cass Sunstein the Memo

Someone Send Cass Sunstein the Memo
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On TNR's Open University site, here, the esteemed polymathic U of C law professor comments on Peter Beinart's essay on Barack Obama by asking: "Obvious questions: Why does Beinart think that? What's the empirical evidence? Has he studied public opinion polls with respect to Obama? Has he investigated competing hypotheses?"

Um, dude. The whole point in writing in an opinion magazine like TNR, particularly TNR, but also particularly Slate (and, well, the rest of 'em too), is to be able to make categorical statements with zero empirical evidence. If you "feel" something is true, it's true, or at least true enough to base a column on it. I actually agree with Beinart about Obama, but Sunstein's questions are a useful reminder of just how airy all this stuff is.

Read the whole Altercation here.

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