Thou Shalt Not (Even Slightly) Defend Rushbo

If you are at all interested in what the blogosphere has to offer in the discipline of economics then you must certainly be aware of who Steve Landsburg is. He is one of the most prolific and interesting contributors to economic blogging. Well, apparently he's in hot water with his University's President for committing heresy against one of the academy's more banal orthodoxies. This Seligman cat ought to be ashamed of himself on academic freedom grounds, but he also ought to be a tad more practical - Landsburg is an All-Star economist who could teach anywhere and Rochester is a pretty crappy place to live - UofR is lucky to have him. If I were Landsburg, I'd write a blog response to Seligman (in unstintingly collegial academic language of course) to the effect of "lick my tenured a**."

UPDATE: I'll be looking for evidence in further reporting but I get the sense that the embarrassment level is already going up for UofR, and, this is also my speculation, that Landsburg is far and away more clever than Seligman and could win a PR war should he choose to fight one. We'll see.