By Samuel Rubenfeld

The Educate ’08 lecture series has a critic: a self-professed “out” conservative political science professor Richard Himelfarb.

In an interview, he challenged The Chronicle to look back at the list of guest speakers the University has hosted in its run-up to the final presidential debate to see whether their was a liberal bias in the lineup.

“One of the few disappointments of Educate ’08 is that there have been a significant imbalance between Democratic or liberal speakers and Republican or conservative speakers,” Himelfarb said.

The Educate ’08 Web site lists all the events the University has held since the initiative launched following the University’s hosting of the final presidential debate was announced last November.

The list of the Spring events said there was a three-day symposium on climate change, a lecture from former United Nations weapons inspector Stephen Kinzer, a talk from a retired Army Colonel who wrote a book about political dissent and an event with liberal New York Times Op-ed columnist Paul Krugman.

But the Spring Calender also included events such as a lecture from Norman Podhoretz, the famed neo-conservative who called the War on Terror “World War 4,” a talk about hedge funds by the president of Bank of New York Mellon and an event with retired Gen. Barry McCaffrey. However, Himelfarb said that even the conservatives who did speak at the University “had nothing complimentary to say about this administration.”

“We worked for ideological balance, not for who supported whom,” said Mellissa Connolly, vice president for University Relations.

There were also multiple events in the Spring that paired left and right against each other: The New York Times Op-Ed columnists Maureen Dowd, a liberal, and William Kristol, a conservative, both held an event together, as did noted political odd couple James Carville and Mary Matalin, the married political analysts who, respectively, worked for Bill Clinton and Dick Cheney. Paul Begala, a former adviser to Clinton, was paired with Frank Luntz, a Republican pollster.

Multiple events were keynoted by journalists who are regarded as straight-news reporters, like Adam Nagourney and Elizabeth Bumiller, both of whom are political correspondents for The New York Times who also spoke at Educate ’08 events.

“Events during the Fall semester also were also dominated by liberals, especially former Clinton administration officials,” Himelfarb said.

During the fall, the University hosted Amy Goodman, an investigative reporter from WBAI-FM, and a panel on the economy featuring former Treasury Secretaries Robert Rubin, who served in the Clinton administration, and Paul O’Neill, who served the Bush administration early in his presidency, but is now an administration critic. Former New York Governor Mario Cuomo, a Democrat, was paired with Richard Haass, the president of the Council on Foreign Relations who also worked in the State Department during the Bush administration, in an event last Thursday. (Please see page A5.)

George Stephanopolous, the former communications director for the Clinton administration turned ABC News political correspondent, spoke at an event in September at the Adams Playhouse. “He regards himself as a straight-news journalist, so it would not be right to pair him off,” Connolly said.