The boss around here, R.R. Reno, has a very smart article On the Square this morning: ” Does the Tea Party Have a Religion Problem ?” His criticism of Professors Campbell and Putnam, authors of a recent New York Times op-ed on the Tea Party , is spot on. Except for one thing: I’m sorry to say that Campbell and Putnam are not sociologists, as Reno says more than once. They are both political scientists, members of the discipline to which I have belonged for three decades and more. Readers may find little to distinguish between the two academic disciplines, but to folks in academe these differences matter a good deal.
Campbell and Putnam’s observations are as tendentious as our esteemed editor says. I only wish I could say they were sociologists . . .
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