This is about the funniest thing I've read in months!
Yes, that's right, in his continuing quest for intellectual credibility and respectibility, David Horowitz has constructed a poll where you can vote for the "Worst Professor in the United States!" Alas, I'm not on the list (although you could always go and complain about me at Ratemyprofessors.com; Lord knows, so many of my students do!), but Michael Bérubé has mounted a campaign to get himself elected to the position (which, I gather, comes with a crown and scepter).
You see, this is important to Horowitz. As we all know, the only reason that he isn't being considered for the now-vacant presidency of Harvard is because of his conservative positions on things (as opposed to ultra-lefty Lawrence Summers, who was obviously only given the job because of his contacts in the Politburo). How better to reinforce your intellectual respectibility than an internet poll. This would also explain why Michael is so eager to win (that, and the crown and scepter).
But here's my favorite bit from Michael's post:
Well, just as things were getting interesting, the doughty crew of the U.S.S. Horowitz put the kabosh on the whole party, wiping the slate clean yesterday at about 2 pm Pacific. Many readers have urged me to lobby for a whole new round of ballot-stuffing, and rumor has it that one enterprising soul has even posted a revised ballot-stuffing script somewhere in this thread, though I cannot verify this personally. But in all honesty, I can’t find it in myself to ask anyone to go back to FrontPage yet again. Once (or, in some cases, ten or twenty thousand times) was more than enough. Quite apart from all the “New Video Shows Hillary Killed Vincent Foster with her Bare Hands” lunacy to which innocent readers are exposed when they show up to vote, there’s the simple fact that FrontPage is, aesthetically speaking, the single ugliest website on the entire Internets. I mean, what’s with the soggy brown-and-yellow motif, anyway? Were all the attractive color schemes taken by the time the FrontPage people learned how to do web design? Or did Horowitz himself say, “listen, boys, I think we need to come up with a look that says rot and decay”?
But after FrontPage wiped out those stunning vote totals (about 750,000 votes in all), two funny things happened. First, Horowitz and Company learned that FrontPage does not actually get 200,000 readers a day, as the previous numbers might have led them to believe. As of 2 pm eastern time today, in fact, they’ve only received about two thousand votes in all.
*SNIP*
(It’s good to see that they’re still listing individual professors under the heading “School” and their institutions under “Professor.” And they’re still spelling Berkeley “Berkelyl.” Plus ça change!)
Quality, the mark of all things Horowitz.
UPDATE: I note that Horowitz has corrected the headings, but "Berkeley" is still "Berkelyl"
UPDATE 2: I edited the quote from Michael a little bit to get to the punch line, the gist of what I cut was simply that Horowitz reset the counter on his "poll" and Michael still won by an overwhelming margin! You go, Michael!
Scott,
When I first came across the "Worst Professor" poll I meant to shoot off an email to you expressing my disappointment that you weren't on the list (but we'll discuss this at the next party meeting); your students' comments on Ratemyprofessor are redeeming, however.
Especially revealing are the comments of the student who chides you for teaching as if you were still at Princeton. Way to go, Captain Self-Esteem. Wrap that mantle of mediocrity around your shoulders and rain curses on those who don't take you for the loser you think yourself to be. No “Man’s reach should exceed his grasp” for you; instead we’ll just move everything to a lower shelf.
That's all. You can go back to kicking undergrad ass. But really, Scott, we do have to talk about your recruitment quotas. Not enough of your students have seen ‘Brokeback Mountain’.
Don’t make us bring you back to Idaho for some ‘re-education’.
Posted by: JohnB | March 03, 2006 at 10:47 PM