December 8, 2004

What If Dubya Hadn't Quit Drinking When He Was Young?

Chicago Philosophers Create a New Academic Discipline

The Philosophy Department at the University of Chicago announced yesterday that it will offer a new core curriculum based on the life and politics of President Bush. Undergraduate courses will be offered beginning next semester, followed by graduate courses next fall.

The curriculum will be titled: What if George W. Bush Had not Ceased Drinking as a Young Man?

"As a philosophical construct, we think this question will be a rich one for scholarly research and thought and most likely will lead to a lively and significant body of publications, discourse, and advancement of knowledge," said Charlton Summerton, professor of philosophy and chairman of the department.

Summerton said existing members of the philosophy faculty will teach the first courses, but that a search for two or three new academic appointments to lead the Bush curriculum will be launched in the next few weeks. The university's plan calls for the first doctorates in George W. Bush Philosophical Studies to be awarded in 2008 or 2009.

"Some obvious questions will be tackled early," Summerton said. "For example, if George W. Bush hadn't stopped drinking, would there be an Iraq war? Would there be the huge deficit? Would the French be our friends? What about gay and lesbian marriage? Would Al Gore have invented the Internet?"

As a young man, President Bush was known to enjoy drink and partying. He gave it up in his thirties after becoming involved in the evangelical branch of Christianity.

The University of Chicago's decision to offer the philosophy curriculum is an obvious outgrowth of the rise of neoconservatism in American politics, which the Bush Administration has come to epitomize. The father of neoconservatism was Leo Strauss, a member of the Chicago philosophy faculty who died in 1973.

Prominent adherents to neoconservative dogma include Secretary of State-designee Condoleezza Rice, Secretary of Defense Donald H. Rumsfeld, and Rumsfeld's deputy, Paul Wolfowitz.

Democrats and left-leaning Internet sites were quick to ridicule the Chicago program. Within hours of the announcement, bushhecrazyman.org had posted a list of suggested study areas for Chicago philosophy students. They included:

If Bush had continued drinking, but switched from Budweiser to Coors, would some of his West Texas oil wells have come in instead of being dry holes and would he now be indicted as the head of Enron instead of Ken Lay?

If Bush had continued drinking, would Laura have taken the girls and left him and would all three now be Peace Corps volunteers in Namibia, banished there by Barbara, George's mother?

If Rumsfeld were not the secretary of defense, but if there had been an Iraq war, would Wolfowitz now find it necessary to lick his comb so as to paste down his hair before appearing on television?

The Chicago program is a blow to former President Clinton in his efforts to bolster his image in the ongoing game of one-upmanship with the Bush family. Two years ago the University of Arkansas considered developing a "What if Monica Lewinsky Had Taken an Internship at the Heritage Foundation" curriculum in the Political Science Department. The proposal, privately pushed by President Clinton and his allies, was eventually tabled after a contentious and sometimes bitter struggle between faculty factions and the Board of Regents.

After the University of Chicago announcement, the White House press office issued a short statement saying that President Bush "was honored" to have such an academic program created. Later, at a photo opportunity in which Bush posed in the Oval Office with the president of Central Slovania, the president joked with reporters, saying, "It's great as long as I don't have to read anything."

Fundraising consultants who advise universities in their efforts to raise money said Chicago's new curriculum was a clever move.

"This is guaranteed to open the coffers of all the conservative foundations and think tanks who want their agendas advanced and want to see George Bush lionized," said one consultant, who asked not to be identified. "They do run a risk, though. Some serious scholarship into some of these Bush what-ifs might not produce the results they want."

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