There's good news and bad news, I guess. The good news is that a columnist has chosen to base one of his columns on an old column of mine. Even better, he quotes me by name and even gives me some credit, even though his evaluation of President Bush (our mutual subject) obviously differs from mine.

The bad news is that he got my background slightly wrong. A quick google search would have gotten him my background on the first page. I did not teach at Harvard Business School for just one year (almost always a visiting appointment), but was a regular assistant professor on the tenture track. Until I jumped off the train. I decided to leave full time academic life (for reasons that might be obvious to readers who follow what I have to say about intellectuals and academia), and ever since I have kept my academic presence to strictly term—limited dimensions. A visiting professor here or a visiting scholar there afterward, but more recently, an occasional guest lecture or a walk across the campus of UC Berkeley has sufficed to satisfy my residual academic identity.

So I appreciate the difference more than most. My perspectives on the President's MBA were formed through a total of six years of intense focus on Harvard's MBA education.

Thomas Lifson   9 11 05