I confess to being fascinated by academic or literary downfalls, so I've been spending the past few days catching up on the imbroglio over Greg Mortenson, his Central Asia Institute (CAI), and his bestsellers Three Cups of Tea and Stones Into Schools.  

To sum up:  through his books and CAI, Mortenson has popularized his mission to build schools and educate children (particularly girls) in Pakistan and Afghanistan as a way of reducing extremism in that region.  Investigative reports by 60 Minutes and Jon Krakauer strongly suggest the following: 

1)  Mortenson either fudged or flat-out lied about some of the more gripping anecdotes in both books. 

2)  Mortenson used CAI as a vehicle to promote his books and subsidize his income.  CAI covered his travel expenses for book tours and purchased books in such a way to boost royalties for Mortenson.  According to financial statenments, CAI devoted more of its budget to Mortenson's promotional tours than actually building schools in Central Asia.  Mortenson rebuffed efforts by other CAI employees to impose financial controls on his expenditures.

3)  CAI/Mortenson exaggerated the number of schools that were built, and in many cases even if the schools were built, they have been left unused due to a variety of logistical and organizational failures. 

Mortenson and CAI have responded with a plethora of media interviews, direct responses and open missives to supporters.  Most of these seem pretty feeble to me.  When Mortenson says that, "It is important to know that Balti people have a completely different notion about time," you kinda wonder if Mortenson isn't talking about himself.)  Official investigations are now under way, publishers are belatedly fact-checking, and some prize committees are very busy wiping egg off of their face. 

To be fair, Mortenson has actually built schools in Afghanistan and Pakistan.  On my personal Scandal-O-Meter, this rates far below Bernie Madoff -- but pretty far above, say, Doris Kearns Goodwin. 

So, what are the takeaway lessons from all this?  Five thoughts:   

1)  Reading through Krakauer's story, the striking thing is not the extent of Mortenson's deception but rather the fact that it took so long for this to come to light.  Mortenson has been a celebrity since Parade profiled him in April 2003.  The fact that Mortenson was able to write two best-sellers and enjoy the lecture circuit for eight years despite the surprising number of people who knew there were issues with Mortenson's narrative.  The moral of the story is that , even in a transparent Web 2.0 era, myths can trump reality for a looooong time. 

2)  Even Mortenson's detractors make it clear that they think he's done much good in Central Asia, so this realy isn't a Bernie Madoff-style scam.  It does suggest, however, that political analysts who think of NGOs and celebrity activists as pursuing humane policy ends only for altruistic purposes are living in  Fantasyland.  It's a world of complex and overlapping motives, and no influential actor in international relations is a saint.   

3)  What's interesting to me about the inaccuracies/fabrications in Three Cups of Tea is that, by and large, they are irrelevant to the larger policy question of whether schools can help reduce violent extremism.  Whether Greg Mortenson was kidnapped by the Taliban or not, whether he wandered into a village or not don't really matter from a policy perspective.  Based on the amount of ink pixels being spilled used on these questions, however, it's quite clear that these narrative elements really do matter.  As Laura Miller has pointed out in Salon, however, greater attention is being paid to those details than the NGO mismanagement. 

This suggests, in many ways, the power that creation or origin narratives have in developing politically alluring policies.  CAI ain't lying when they say that, "Greg’s speeches, books and public appearances are the primary means of educating the American people on behalf of the Institute."   Coming up with a compelling policy is not always enough to generate action -- narratives matter one whole hell of a lot. 

4)  Does Mortenson's myths and mismanagement undercut the policy message?  To tell the truth, I'm not blown away by Mortenson's policy message -- indeed, it's pretty weak.  As Alanna Shaikh points out in FP:

Its focus was on building schools -- and that's it. Not a thought was spared for education quality, access, or sustainability. But building schools has never been the answer to improving education. If it were, then the millions of dollars poured into international education over the last half-century would have already solved Afghanistan's -- and the rest of the world's -- education deficit by now.

Over the last 50 years of studying international development, scholars have built a large body of research and theory on how to improve education in the developing world. None of it has recommended providing more school buildings, because according to decades of research, buildings aren't what matter. Teachers matter. Curriculum matters. Funding for education matters. Where classes actually take place? Not really.

Spencer Ackerman has a detailed, link-rich post at Wired detailing the ways in which U.S. military's COINistas have drunk way too deeply from Mortenson's magical teacup.  

In the best defense of Mortenson I've seen, Daniel Glick blogs the following: 

But here’s the crux for me.  As somebody who has worked in a Muslim country (I was a Knight International Press Fellow working in Algeria in 2006), I know that Americans need a lot of bridge building in the Islamic world.  Mortenson has gone where few others have gone, and has put in incredible time and energy to raise awareness, seed schools, and give girls opportunities for education that would not be theirs otherwise.  I have no doubt he has done orders of magnitude more good than harm.  The same cannot be said for a lot of NGOs doing development work around the world, much less our military involvement in Iraq and Afghanistan.

Hmmm.... maybe.  At a minimum, I'd like to see the costs and the benefits of Mortenson's activities weighed very carefully right now. 

5)  I, for one, look forward to the day when 60 Minutes and Jon Krakauer start looking into the living dead.  I will hereby defend every fact, every citation in Theories of International Politics and Zombies to the end of my days, or the end of days, whichever comes first. 

Am I missing anything? 

As someone who wrote about celebrity activism a few years ago, I'm always intrigued to see new takes on the issue.  In the Washington Post, a curmudgeonly William Easterly argues that today's celebrity activists -- like Bono -- ain't like the celebrity dissidents of a prior generation -- like John Lennon:

Is there a celebrity activist today who matches Lennon's impact and appeal? The closest counterpart to Lennon now is U2's Bono, another transcendent musical talent championing another cause: the battle against global poverty. But there is a fundamental difference between Lennon's activism and Bono's, and it underscores the sad evolution of celebrity activism in recent years.

Lennon was a rebel. Bono is not.

Lennon's protests against the war in Vietnam so threatened the U.S. government that he was hounded by the FBI, police and immigration authorities. He was a moral crusader who challenged leaders whom he thought were doing wrong. Bono, by contrast, has become a sort of celebrity policy expert, supporting specific technical solutions to global poverty. He does not challenge power but rather embraces it; he is more likely to appear in photo ops with international political leaders - or to travel through Africa with a Treasury secretary - than he is to call them out in a meaningful way.

There is something inherently noble about the celebrity dissident, but there is something slightly ridiculous about the celebrity wonk.

Where the essay gets a little strange is where Easterly defines what he means in his dissident vs. wonk divide:

Bono is not the only well-intentioned celebrity wonk of our age - the impulse is ubiquitous. Angelina Jolie, for instance, is a member of the Council on Foreign Relations (seriously) in addition to serving as a U.N. goodwill ambassador. Ben Affleck has become an expert on the war in Congo. George Clooney has Sudan covered, while Leonardo DiCaprio hobnobs with Russian President Vladimir Putin and other leaders at a summit to protect tigers; both actors have written opinion essays on those subjects in these pages, further solidifying their expert bona fides.

But why should we pay attention to Bono's or Jolie's expertise on Africa, any more than we would ask them for guidance on the proper monetary policy for the Federal Reserve?

True dissidents - celebrity or not - play a vital role in democracy. But the celebrity desire to gain political power and social approval breeds intellectual conformity, precisely the opposite of what we need to achieve real changes. Politicians, intellectuals and the public can fall prey to groupthink (We must invade Vietnam to keep the dominoes from falling!) and need dissidents to shake them out of it.

True dissidents claim no expertise; they offer no 10-point plans to fix a problem. They are most effective when they simply assert that the status quo is morally wrong. Of course, they need to be noticed to have an impact, hence the historical role of dissidents such as Lennon who can use their celebrity to be heard.

Now, on the one hand, I can kinda sorta see what Easterly is saying.  Sometimes it takes the innocent to say that the emperor has no clothes, and goodness knows celebrities can play that role if they so choose. 

That said, Easterly is also being a bit innocent himself.  As I argued a few years ago, celebrities have strong personal incentives to embrace causes that are seen as having broad appeal.  It's worth remembering that Lennon only starting acting dissident-y after he was more popular than Jesus.  The celebrities that have made their anti-war views loudly known -- like, say, Sean Penn -- haven't exactly shifted the debate all that much. 

This could be because today's celebrities simply can't project the same kind of star power that the Beatles could.  Today's global popular culture is more fragmented, and so individual celebrities might have smaller groupies fan bases than in the past. 

More generally, however, Easterly seems to be arguing that the more celebrities know about the cause that they are embracing, the less effective they will be.  Again, in today's information ecosystem, I'm not sure that's right.  As I wrote before: 

In the current media environment, a symbiotic relationship between celebrities and cause célèbres has developed. Celebrities have a comparative advantage over policy wonks because they have access to a wider array of media outlets, which translates into a wider audience of citizens. Superstars can go on The Today Show or The Late Show to plug their latest movie and their latest global cause. Because of their celebrity cachet, even hard-news programs will cover them-stories about celebrities can goose Nielsen ratings. With a few exceptions, like Barack Obama or John McCain, most politicians cannot make the reverse leap to soft-news outlets. Non-celebrity policy activists are virtually guaranteed to be shut out of these programs.

The growth of soft news gives celebrity activists enormous leverage. The famous and the fabulous are the bread and butter of entertainment programs. Covering celebrity do-gooders provides content that balances out, say, tabloid coverage of Nicole Richie's personal and legal troubles. ESPN can cover both Michael Vick's travails and Dikembe Mutombo's efforts to improve health care in sub-Saharan Africa. MTV will cover Amy Winehouse's on-stage meltdowns, but they will also follow Angelina Jolie in her trips to Africa. They covered Live Earth for both the music and the message....

Indeed, celebrities actually have an advantage over other policy activists and experts because hard-news outlets have an incentive to cover them too. Celebrities mean greater attention, and hard-news outlets are not above stunts designed to attract readers or ratings. Consider this question: If The Washington Post is deciding between running an op-ed by Angelina Jolie and an op-ed by a lesser-known expert on Sudan, which author do you think they are most likely to choose?

On the other hand, it is very easy, in today's world, to mock the uninformed dissident who simply says "war is bad."  Indeed, given the causes that celebrities have latched onto -- like Darfur -- the dissident response might well be to call for greater American intervention as the means to end the status quo in the region.  Ironically, only as celebrities have acquired more information about Sudan have they realized the huge risks of that policy.     

Having read and reviewed Easterly, I suspect he's making these arguments because he knows a great deal about aid (which makes him a wonk in that area) and not so much about war (which makes him more of a dissident) and he'd like celebrities to be following his lead.   More generally, and revealing my own biases, I'm skeptical that the dissident will be more effective than the insider.  Or, to posit the counterfactual, even if Bono, Angelina Jolie, Brad Pitt and George Clooney had railed against the Iraq war from day one, I don't think it would have made a damn bit of difference. 

Of course, if Salma Hayek had gotten involved, then all bets are off. 

I'm willing for the commenters to persuade me otherwise.  Particularly Salma Hayek. 

Over at Aid Watch, William Easterly tries to turn the Tiger Woods imbroglio into a teachable moment about development economics.  No, really: 

What Tiger considerately did for our education was to show how the Halo Effect is a myth....

So if we observe a country is good at say, technological innovation, we assume that this country is also good at other good things like, say, visionary leadership, freedom from corruption, and a culture of trust. Since the latter three are imprecise to measure (and the measures themselves may be contaminated by the Halo Effect), we lazily assume they are all good. But actually, there are plenty of examples of successful innovators with mediocre leaders, corruption, and distrustful populations. The US assumed world technological leadership in the late 19^th century with presidents named Chester Arthur and Rutherford B. Hayes, amidst legendary post-Civil War graft. Innovators include both trusting Danes and suspicious Frenchmen.

The false Halo Effect makes us think we understand development more than we really do, when we think all good things go together in the “good” outcomes. The “Halo Effect”  puts heavy weight on some explanations like “visionary leadership” that may be spurious. More subtly, it leaves out the more complicated cases of UNEVEN determinants of success: why is New York City the world’s premier city, when we can’t even manage decent airports (with 3 separate failed tries)?

The idea that EVERYTHING is a necessary condition for development is too facile.  The principles of specialization and comparative advantage suggest you DON”T have to be good at everything all the time. 

Hmmm...... maybe. 

Really, I get Easterly's point -- not everything is a necessary condition for economic development.  Still, as I read this, my mind kept drifting back to a gem of an article William Baumol wrote called, "Entrepreneurship:  Productive, Unproductive and Destructive."   It's gist: 

The basic hypothesis is that, while the total supply of entrepreneurs varies among societies, the productive contribution of the society's entrepreneurial activities varies much more because of their allocation between productive activities, such as innovation, and largely unproductive activities, such as rent seeking or organized crime. This allocation is heavily influenced by the relative payoffs society offers to such activities. This implies that policy can influence the allocation of entrepreneurship more effectively than it can influence its supply.

Not everything is a necessary condition for development.  But some things are VERY IMPORTANT necessary conditions.  Without them, a country's natural endowments get used in very, very perverse ways.  It is entirely possible to have an innovative society in a corrupt state, for example -- but the question is, how does a corrupt public sector skew the incentives of entrepreneurs and inventors? 

I don't think Easterly is completely wrong in his point about the Halo Effect -- but I don't think he's completely right, either. 

Your humble blogger has occasionally prided himself as something of an authority on the intersection between celebrities and international relations.  Which brings me to Jessica Biel.   

Sure, the woman in the picture above these words seems pleasant enough, but according to McAfee security, she's not what she seems.  This Reuters story by Belinda Goldsmith explains: 

Actress Jessica Biel has overtaken Brad Pitt as the most dangerous celebrity to search in cyberspace, according to internet security company McAfee Inc.

For the third consecutive year, McAfee surveyed which A-list celebrity was the riskiest to track on the internet after Pitt topped the list last year and Paris Hilton in 2007.

Biel, 27, who shot to fame in the TV show 7th Heaven and most recently starred in Easy Virtue, was deemed the most dangerous, with fans having a one-in-five chance of landing at a website that has tested positive for online threats, such as spyware, adware, spam, phishing and viruses....

President Barack Obama and First Lady Michelle Obama, who have featured on most celebrity list this year, were not at the top of risky public figures to search.

The Obamas ranked in the bottom third of this year’s results, at No. 34 and No. 39 respectively.

You can access the Top 15 list here.  Some interesting tidbits: 

• Megan Fox and Angelina Jolie are tied for 8th.  Read into that what you will. 
• Celebrities jump the shark before they lose their utility to cybercriminals.  My proof:  Jessica Simpson, Britney Spears, Lindsay Lohan and Kim Kardashian remain in the top 15. 
• Declining soft power of America, my fanny:  13 of the 15 celebs on the list were American -- Gisele Bundchen and Rihanna were the only non-American celebrities on the list. 
• In yet another justification for her unparalleled status as Your Humble Blogger's Favorite Online Crush, Salma Hayek is not on this list. So there -- go ahead and search her out on these interwebs. 
• Flavor Flav did not make this list... exactly. 

A question to readers:  if this were a truly just world, which celebrities should be at the top of this list?

Your humble blogger has long been interested in the intersection between celebrity and politics.

I therefore feel compelled to report the following anecdote concerning Jessica Alba and Bill O'Reilly:

Jessica Alba is setting the record straight: Sweden was neutral during World War II.

Alba and Fox TV show host Bill O’Reilly traded punches last week after the presidential inauguration. After Alba told a Fox reporter that O’Reilly was “kind of an a-hole;” he retaliated by calling her a “pinhead” for telling a reporter to “be Sweden about it,” assuming she meant Switzerland.

“I want to clear some things up that have been bothering me lately,” Alba blogged on MySpace Celebrity. “Last week, Mr. Bill O'Reilly and some really classy sites (i.e.TMZ) insinuated I was dumb by claiming Sweden was a neutral country. I appreciate the fact that he is a news anchor and that gossip sites are inundated with intelligent reporting, but seriously people... it's so sad to me that you think the only neutral country during WWII was Switzerland.”

For the record, Alba wins this fact fight. This is the second time in the past year that a right-wing political figure has been brought low by a celebrity.

This is surprising. It's pretty easy to poke fun at celebs like Paris Hilton or Jessica Alba (the latter's inauguration video is unintentionally very funny). Right-wing politicos and pundits should be used to debate.

So why are celebrities schooling them? Has the quality of conservative leadership really fallen so far? What happens when the true A-listers, like, say, Salma Hayek, start focusing their fire on Mitch McConnell or Rush Limbaugh?