Of course there are smart people, those we could call "experts," in any field and yes of course they're generally happier and more interested in talking to each other than to the rabble. But AEI and EPI aren't two parts of an "economic policy clerisy." While there is a community of environmental scientists in academia, there is no Washington-based organization or set of institutions devoted to ensuring that there is some finite set of bipartisan actors who set the parameters of respectable debate. There's just no close equivalent to the "foreign policy community" and the unique role they play in the military, government, and the media, in any other area.
Still Dan Drezner is very serious and we should be listening to him. He's been right about so many things, and he's got the number of that patchouli stinking Greenwald.
