[Infowarrior] - Shooting the Messenger

[Richard Forno]

Shooting the Messenger

Linda J. Bilmes, a lecturer in public policy at Harvard University, calls
her latest paper ³pretty dry.² That hasn¹t prevented it from riling
high-ranking Pentagon officials ‹ who called her and her dean to complain
about her work. When they questioned her sources of material, they ran into
a bit of a problem: She did most of her research with data on federal Web
sites. So what did the Pentagon do? It changed the Web sites, and now
continues to trash her research.

Bilmes has become a leading expert on economic questions related to the war
in Iraq, and her experience the last few weeks demonstrates how social
scientists can end up in the line of political fire when their findings ‹
however dry ‹ offend government officials.

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http://www.insidehighered.com/news/2007/01/30/injuries