I have some ideas myself. I just don’t want to give them any.

There are so many other problems around the world that they should be writing about each quarter.

Maybe you’re joking. But if not, Henry did say the journal test was a rough and ready mechanism. It should also be pointed out that Foreign Affairs probably wouldn’t have gone anywhere near Huckabee’s piece if he hadn’t been a viable candidate for the presidency; and if he were to become president (please God, no) he would thereby become a de facto member of the FPC. Maybe this even supports Henry’s case, if candidate essays in FA should be thought of as a sort of ‘application’ for membership in the community.

So Mike Huckabee, sole author (if the byline is to believed) of a piece in the Jan/Feb issue of Foreign Affairs, is, or at least recently was, a member of the FPC

There are people who really know their stuff and there are people who are the real power, but these are two entirely separate groups.

The first is probably best characterised by top scholars at leading research universities plus one or two outsiders; the latter by organised interests such as arms manufacturers, the cuban lobby etc. Foreign Affairs is the meeting point – the intersection – between the two, where people who are reasonably knowledgeable who also advocate policy views that are compatible with US political biases publish and mingle.

Bu I realize this might be like onion peeling: if you look behind th opions to find the real decision makers, there might be nothing in the core.

One aspect of American politics as a whole is how right wing on average it is.

I certainly don’t think political scientists – even IR scholars – are part of the FPC, since their views often fall well outside the scope of acceptable debate as the political parties define it.

This seems like the perfect case for a journalist who’s trusted by the FPC to do an anonymous survey of a decent number of them about O’Hanlon, and publish the results.