COME ON

The Times reports that 72 Georgetown faculty, administrators, and graduate students have signed a letter protesting the school's hiring of Douglas Feith for a two-year lectureship. Which of the 72 did Jason DeParle choose to interview? One is the author of the petition. The other

has appointments in anthropology and French and whose résumé lists several writings about French chocolate makers. ("From Master Chocolatiers Today: Bayonne and the Basque Coast.") She complained that Mr. Feith's appointment was "presented as a fait accompli."

What better to reinforce a narrative which marginalizes critics of the neoconservative project as anti-American elitists than an anecdote about a French professor who studies "Master Chocolatiers"? That liberal media, at it again. Incidentally, Professor Terrio has other research papers DeParle could have cited, like "New 'Savages' in the Suburbs: Criminalizing 'Immigrant' Youth in French Mass Media." Or he could have talked to a professor like Judith Tucker, the historian who edits the International Journal of Middle East Studies. But that wouldn't pack the same narrative punch.