It's dicey business when mere mortals try to figure out why smart people in high places do dumb things. Or when they do things that just don't add up.
Dicey, because we have the sneaking suspicion that there's always more to the story than we know. And because people in those high places are uncommonly skilled in covering their tracks and keeping us from knowing.
So, I'm not going to pretend to have penetrated in the last 24 hours the mystery of why UC Irvine Chancellor Michael Drake tore up the contract Tuesday that he offered Duke University law professor Erwin Chemerinsky a month ago to become the first dean of UCI's law school.
But make no mistake: There is a mystery to be solved. And the answer goes far, far beyond Drake's statement Wednesday that he has "come to the very difficult conclusion that Professor Chemerinsky is not the right fit for the dean's position at UC Irvine at this time."
Who got to Drake, who's been chancellor since mid-2005, and told him that Chemerinsky, a well-known constitutional scholar and acknowledged liberal commentator, isn't the guy for UCI?
Give us the name or names.
Drake insists that nobody leaned on him, that he just had second thoughts.
Not buying it.
And even if I did, how is it that the well-publicized search for the school's founding dean got to the point where Chemerinsky signed the contract, only to have it dramatically taken away? Pretty ham-handed either way.
Although there's plenty we don't know so far, one thing is clear: UCI comes across like a backwater community college holding its first raffle.
Chemerinsky would have brought the star power that any new law school would covet. His liberal credentials were hardly a secret. As recently as Aug. 16, The Times published his essay critical of U.S. Atty. Gen. Alberto R. Gonzales' support of a regulation making it harder for death row inmates to have their cases reviewed in federal court.
Orange County is obviously conservative political territory. And UCI, like most universities, longs for a sustainable base of financial donors to keep it moving forward. Did a deep-pocketed cadre of conservative donors put the heat on Drake to rescind the offer?
Or did the impetus for the Dump Chemerinsky movement originate with the UC system's Board of Regents, which would have to approve the contract?
And, if either speculation is correct -- and Drake didn't simply change his mind, as he says -- why didn't Drake stand his ground and fight for Chemerinsky?
