I have not been altogether kind to the badly politicized American Sociological Association, with good reason, but I do not wish to suggest that the failures of professional sociology are somehow unique. The American Political Science Association meets next month. Their featured speakers from outside the profession are George Soros, Mary Robinson, Paul Heinbecker, Lani Guinier, and Joseph Stiglitz.

George Soros is famous partly because he is really, really rich. The other part is stuff such as blaming Jews for rising anti-Semitism (or as Michael Steinhardt, who hosted that famous lecture put it, "George Soros does not think Jews should be hated any more than they deserve to be") and his funding of MoveOn.

Mary Robinson departure from the UN was described by a fawning Salon interviewer this way:

It's common knowledge that her defense of the Durban Conference against Racism, which U.S. and Israeli representatives walked out of, her views on the Israel-Palestine conflict and her condemnation of the U.S. treatment of prisoners in Camp X-ray at Cuba's Guantanamo Bay provoked the Bush administration to oppose the extension of her term.

Paul Heinbecker is the former Canadian ambassador to the UN who crafted one of the "give Saddam one more chance" resolutions. He was vehemently opposed to the war:

“To me, motives matter,” he added. “Saddam was evil. But I respectfully disagree that war was necessary.” The Iraq government had committed atrocities in the past – gassing Kurds in 1988, viciously suppressing a Shiite uprising following the first U.S.-led war, led by Bush Sr.

But in 2003, Iraq was not planning any mass killings. “Saddam should have been prosecuted” for his previous atrocities, “not attacked,’ Heinbecker said.

It has been said, he added, that anti-Americanism is really anti-American foreign policy, and isn’t directed against the American people. But if the American people keep electing governments that promote a foreign policy that is at odds with the rest of the world, how long can the argument be upheld that there is a divide between the people and the government?

After that line-up, a layman might be forgiven for suspecting that the Stiglitz invitation was driven by his attacks on the Bush administration and his apparent belief that world poverty can be explained away by corruption at the IMF.

None of this says that the APSA has put together an inept bunch of featured speakers. Guinier and Robinson are experienced, articulate and smart lawyers. Whatever his failings as a policy maker, as an economic theorist Stiglitz is a genius. Granted, Soros is a few cards shy of a full deck, but he is a billionaire, so maybe he will pick up the lunch tab. What is depressing is remarkably narrow range of ideas present. If this were the annual banquet for The Nation, it would be hardly out of place. But for the APSA featured speaker line-up, it is seems as if the organizers are indulging in aggressive ideological narrowness.