Berkley Center

Did I ever mention that I'm not voting in the 2008 election? It only took me 16 months and 125 posts to apprise you of this. But it's true. I'm sitting this one out.

Whenever I report this to my compatriots they ply me with questions. And insults. I'll let you provide the insults. Here are some of the most frequently asked questions:

For the love of God, why aren't you voting in 2008?

Because from the moment I started researching and writing about this election back in 2006, I decided that my powers of analysis would be much keener if I didn't get emotionally involved in the process.

That's preposterous. Do you mean to say, Professor Berninerlbau, that unless a journalist takes a vow of "ballot abstinence" he or she can't be objective in covering the campaign? 

No, but ballot abstinence isn't such a bad idea. It's one way of helping a pundit establish critical distance. It's an inner, psychic check-and-balance. The hardest thing to do in this line of work is to be critical of the ideas and people you like. The best political analysts, I think, are the ones whose criticism is omni-directional, as opposed to focused on one party or idea or candidate.

Also, with the proliferation of blogs and opinion-oriented media, there is no shortage of experts out there who are putting their knowledge in the service of a cause or candidate. As long as they are up front about their commitments, that's fine. My approach is an alternative (though I guess I should have been up front about my non-commitments).

An unpopular alternative. A recent unscientific poll found that only one percent of respondents thought journalists shouldn't vote as a means of assuring objectivity. What led you to take such an extreme position?

A life spent in universities, as opposed to newsrooms. Over the years I have watched the credibility of professors in the humanities and social sciences systematically decline. The practice of "politically engaged" scholarship has created a great deal of skepticism about the reliability and trustworthiness of scholars.

For a variety of reasons the Professorate in the humanities and social sciences is experiencing a crisis of trust among students and the public at large. Folks tend to think of the University as at best, a liberal enclave and at worst a breeding ground for radical Leftists. (Note to colleagues: students hate having their "consciousness raised." The eighties are over)

I wanted my classes, and eventually lay audiences, to trust that a critical remark about a candidate or a policy did not necessarily stem from my personal politics. Not having to tow any party line, certainly made it easier to do this.

But you are a secularist of some sort and you advocated for secularism, so what's up with that?

True. But I have been awfully critical of secularism, have I not? My ethos of responsible critique is like the advice that saint gave the King of Belgium who converted to Christianity: "hate what you loved and love what you hated."

I certainly don't hate Evangelicals, but their worldview is radically different from mine. They are the natural enemy and chief predator of the secularist. So I tried to avoid stereotyping them. If you look through the archives, I hope you will see a real effort to understand them in an even-handed manner.

So it worked, your bizarro act of self disenfranchisement?

Not as well as I would have liked. And this is what I will need to think about after the election. Although, I never endorsed a candidate, explicitly or implicitly, I certainly developed man-crushes on at least four of the contenders: Giuliani and Romney on the GOP side, and Clinton and Obama for the Dems.

For instance, as a Professor it's hard not to look at Obama and conclude that he is "one of us." The Senator is dazzlingly intelligent. He is tweedier and wine-and-cheesier than all the other candidates combined.

So, I developed a doctrine of "compensatory criticism"--being extra critical of those whom I may have had some personal reason for liking. But doesn't that compensatory criticism somehow also compromise and skew the process of fair critique?

What was it about Giuliani that you liked?

I lived at Ground Zero during 9/11 and was literally blown out of my apartment along with my wife who was 8 months pregnant at the time. A few days later the authorities let the locals in Tribeca back into their homes. For a few weeks thousands of New Yorkers were living in a surreal, sequestered world,--in between the check points on Canal Street and the ongoing rescue operation below Chambers Street. People were praying for missing friends, armored personnel carriers were rolling through the streets, the neighborhood was caked in grime and reeked of whatever death and destruction smelled like. I can't describe it, but I now know the smell.

It was a perfect opportunity for civilization to collapse, or at least seem like it was falling apart. But the Giuliani administration had so masterfully managed the situation (by providing police, sanitation, social services, etc.), that it became a place where citizens could act graciously to one another--everyone, even New Yorkers, was surprised by how well we behaved after the attacks! I always admired him for that.

You were certainly critical of Obama, Romney and Giuliani. But less so Clinton. Why? 

This was the single greatest shortcoming of the God Vote. I spent very little time paying attention to Senator Clinton until January 2008. This was because I was so convinced she would win that I wanted to concentrate on other politicians while they were still around (I would get to her later, I reasoned).

But then Obama surged and when I finally got around to writing about Clinton, her rival was experiencing his pastor disaster with Jeremiah Wright. Obama thus became my I-told-you-so example against bringing faith into politics.

Clinton imperiled Church/State boundaries far less frequently and ostentatiously. Now remember, I didn't lay off Clinton because I was a Clinton supporter--I wasn't voting for her. I wasn't voting for anyone. See! This is where my act of abstinence, I hope, burnishes my credibility.

But the fact remains, on the issue of Church/State separation she sometimes spoke to some of my partisan concerns (though in the most muted tones imaginable). For all of my ballot abstinence, I was letting a prejudice seep in.

Ever heard of hanging chads? In a close election such as this one every vote counts. Your act of abstinence could have disastrous results?

I live in the District of Columbia.

Oh.