There was a front page article in the “Review” section of Saturday’s WSJ called Rethinking the War on Drugs (sub req):
Prohibition and legalization aren't our only choices when it comes to drugs. Proven programs can greatly reduce the harm caused by hard-core users—and reduce our prison population, too.
The subject didn’t elicit any real interest in me and I surely would have completely passed it by had I not noticed one of the authors who penned it.
By MARK A.R. KLEIMAN, JONATHAN P. CAULKINS and ANGELA HAWKEN
Dr. Kleiman is professor of public policy at the UCLA Luskin School of Public Affairs. Dr. Caulkins is Stever Professor of Operations Research and Public Policy at Carnegie Mellon University. Dr. Hawken is associate professor of public policy at Pepperdine University. They are co-authors of "Drugs and Drug Policy: What Everyone Needs to Know."
Wait just a minute. Now while I know three, personally, professors named Mark Kleiman, I only know one who also includes those two middle initials. That had to be the same Mark A.R. Kleiman. You know, THAT Mark A.R. Kleiman:
Looks like Fraters today is going to be devoted to the settling of blood feuds. So let me throw down with one more. There’s a certain professor at UCLA who once called me “deservedly obscure” and “ignorant.” And get this - I never even took one of his classes! (There are dozens of University of Minnesota professors who can much more plausibly make those claims.)
Instead, the liberally bearded scholar-blogger, known primarily for his use of two middle initials, Mark A.R. Kleiman, was attacking my blogging as an example of conservative media bias. Actually he climbed down from his ivory tower only to use me as the instrument with which he could attempt to bludgeon his real target, Instapundit.
Long-time readers of Fraters may recognize the preceding words as being those of Saint Paul which he posted way back in aught-three.
The magic of the internet allows us to go back even further and find the original post from Mark A.R. Kleiman which was called How it works:
Did you ever wonder how it comes to be that anyone, after the 2000 and 2002 campaigns, still believes in the fairytale about liberal bias in the mass media? Well, here’s a tiny example.
Glenn Reynolds links to a post on a deservedly obscure blog called Fraters Libertas.
All these years later and it’s still one of my favorites. We used Kleiman’s quote on the masthead for some time and it has aged well. And it is hard to believe there are still some among us who believe in the “fairytale about liberal media bias” after the 2004, 2006, 2008, 2010 campaigns when the media’s obvious conservative bent was so manifest.
It’s good to see that Professor Kleiman is still out there pushing his public policy prescriptions for society and no doubt indoctrinating a whole new generation of students at UCLA to steer clear of deservedly obscure blogs. And he's still as facially hirsute as ever.
