Not Comforting

Orin Kerr points us to this story in the New York Sun regarding (in Dan Markel's words) L'affiare Drezner. For the most part, it's nothing too noteworthy. But this statement did catch my eye:

While refusing to go into specifics about Mr. Drezner's tenure case, the chairman of the political science department at the University of Chicago, Dali Yang, dismissed the notion that his department considered Mr. Drezner's blog in making its decision. "I can assure you it's not specifically about the blog," he said.

Ummm... "not specifically about the blog"? That doesn't go far in assuaging my fears. I'd hope that the U of C didn't go, "yeah, Professor Drezner rocks, but the blog...ugh...." What we're all worried about is that it will be considered in any negative light, period. Which I don't think it should be, and I hope Professor Markel is right that it won't be in the future.

Again, I'm not saying that Chicago actually did give the blog considerable weight in it's decision. I'm just saying that Professor Yang's statement does little to reassure the blogging population that their blogs will not affect their career chances.