Thursday, October 04, 2007

Secretary of State speculation

I want to recommend a post from Daniel Drezner, whose blog I've been meaning to add to the blogroll for some time. Informed stuff mostly on foreign policy. Dan teaches at Tufts, the Fletcher School, formerly taught political science at Chicago. He was moderator at the seminar I attended last month, under Institute for Humane Studies and Liberty Fund auspices, on globalization and Free Trade, and struck me as bright, fair, and exceptionally well-informed. He's also written a book for the CFR that assesses the arguments for free trade and fair trade remarkably even-handedly, which I plan to review for the Register in a few weeks. Since book reviewing is not my main racket, I tend to review only books I can recommend, though sometimes with reservations.

The other kind of reviewing -- cleverly eviscerating a book by some writer with whom you disagree profoundly and don't respect to boot -- is usually more fun, and I've occasionally indulged in it. But since my schedule and other obligations allow me to review perhaps 20 books a year for the Register, it seems like a waste of the opportunity to use those occasions just to diss a book I don't like, and there must be 20 books a year published that are worth reading. Might do the other if I retire and do freelancing.

Anyway, Dan speculates, based on no inside information he says, as to whom the various candidates might nominate as Secretary of State and National Security Adviser. Don't know if he's right, but the thought process is interesting.

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