Because inboxes are often inundated with spam, the Brookings Institution’s Peter W. Singer has found a way to get his project’s emails — the 21st Century Defense Initiative — to stick out. The emailed newsletters are themed. “We do them monthly and each month they have a theme and they’re almost always tongue in cheek,” Singer told Yeas & Nays. We took notice of this month’s theme because it revolves around the Super Bowl. Who knew that Tim Tebow and the current situation in Iraq had so much in common? “Michael O’Hanlon explains that without American troops, Iraq’s future, much like Tebow’s, is anything but certain,” the newsletter reads, before linking to an article discussing not football, but foreign policy. This month’s newsletter also analogizes the New York Giants’ two recent Super Bowl teams to the differences in battling terrorism in Afghanistan and Nigeria. “Two different years, two different teams,” it proclaims.
“Each time we get really great fun feedback on it,” Singer said. “The main feedback this time was people writing back either to say go Giants or go Patriots, or secondly to say wow you really stretched the comparison between Eli Manning and Pakistan.”
