Many have observed that President Obama and his administration act as if words are the same as deeds.  This is a habit of academics, for whom the power of words is supreme, while actual deeds in the real world, including deeds with force behind them, are a lower form of activity. The emergence of Twitter as a mass medium has vulgarized the academic pretension, by replacing the well-crafted essay with a 140-character slogan-level exposition.  This tweet from U.N. Ambassador Samantha Power, herself an academic who rose to prominence through a bestselling book, epitomizes the pathetic detachment from the real world of her boss: “We call on Russia to cease…” reeks of a lawyerly cease and desist demand.  Vlad Putin must have had a good laugh over that.  His opponents are naïve children.  The kind of people who issue completely ineffective tweets like this: ...and then pat themselves on the back over their moral...(Read Full Post)