From the Academy

Let me begin by writing something friendly about the notorious report of the President’s Commission on Campus Unrest (much of which was intended to damage the President to whom the Commission reported). Critics have overlooked one cheerful byproduct of this report: It means the end of the political career of Mr. William Scranton. No one ever is going to ask him to take charge of anything again. With a chum like Scranton, who needs enemies?

Also the work of this Commission ought to make us aware that we need to get up yet another Presidential commission: the President’s Commission on the Vices of Presidential Commissions. Now that the Kerner Commission on Urban Disorders has betrayed President Johnson, the Scranton Commission has inflamed tempers, and the Pornography Commission has done its work on behalf of the pornographers’ lobby, it should be interesting to inquire, for instance, what sort of “researchers” hang about Washington to obtain appointment to the staffs of these strange ephemeral bodies; what ill-wishers persuade Presidents to authorize commissions that work the undoing of Presidents: and what members of the executive force choose the commissions’ members and recommend their staffs.

RK

About the Author

Russell Kirk

Featured Tags

Let me begin by writing something friendly about the notorious report of the President’s Commission on Campus Unrest (much of which was intended to damage the President to whom the Commission reported). Critics have overlooked one cheerful byproduct of this report: It means the end of the political career of Mr. William Scranton. No one ever is going to ask him to take charge of anything again. With a chum like Scranton, who needs enemies?

Also the work of this Commission ought to make us aware that we need to get up yet another Presidential commission: the President’s Commission on the Vices of Presidential Commissions. Now that the Kerner Commission on Urban Disorders has betrayed President Johnson, the Scranton Commission has inflamed tempers, and the Pornography Commission has done its work on behalf of the pornographers’ lobby, it should be interesting to inquire, for instance, what sort of “researchers” hang about Washington to obtain appointment to the staffs of these strange ephemeral bodies; what ill-wishers persuade Presidents to authorize commissions that work the undoing of Presidents: and what members of the executive force choose the commissions’ members and recommend their staffs.