"Public intellectuals a real community benefit" writes Tim Soutphommasane on 12/02/11 in The Australian. "Every now and then, we are reminded that intellectual power is capable of serving public purposes and can rightly assume partisan forms.
Think of the impact Milton Friedman had on Ronald Reagan, or the impact Friedrich von Hayek had on Margaret Thatcher.
Intellectuals implicated in the affairs of state? It will always be thus. We gain little from precious lamentations about scholars losing their political virginity.
Politics, after all, is nothing if not a contest of ideas. It would be enriched if more men and women of ideas proved capable of entering the public conversation."
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