The public expression of contempt for professors is one of our cherished national pastimes and is that rare thing—bipartisan. We need a commander-in-chief, not a law professor, is a Sarah Palin applause line. Recently on its front page the New York Times invoked “the classic image of a humanities professor … tweed jacket, pipe, nerdy, longwinded, secular—and liberal” in a story on a sociological study of the power of typecasting.
