Some years ago, for example, I had a call from a gentleman who insisted that he had some important work that might be of use in our curriculum at the Naval War College. He’d been referred to me by a former student at another school, and he very much wanted me to read an important article about the Middle East. I asked who wrote the piece. Well, he answered, he did. He was a businessman, and he’d “read a lot.” I asked if he’d had any training in the subject, visited the region, or read any of the languages of the Middle East. He had no such background, he admitted, and then said, “But after
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