Ohio State University is referenced in The Bob Zadek Show not as a subject of discussion but as an institutional affiliation carried by several of the program’s guests. Across the excerpts in which it appears, the university is named only in host Bob Zadek’s introductions and in one guest’s own account of scholarly literature, functioning as a marker of academic standing rather than as a topic in its own right. No episode in the excerpts examines the university’s governance, curriculum, finances or policies.
Burton Abrams
In the March 30, 2014 episode on the worst economic mistakes of the twentieth century, Bob Zadek introduced economist Burton Abrams, describing him as a research fellow at the Independent Institute in the Bay Area, director of that institute’s Government Cost Calculator, and a teacher of economics at the University of Delaware who holds a PhD from Ohio State University Worst Ten Economic Mistakes of the 20th Century (2014). The Ohio State reference appears in a single sentence of the host’s introduction, alongside Abrams’s other credentials and his teaching experience in Croatia, South Africa, Australia and China. Abrams himself did not mention the university in the excerpt; his own remarks concerned the mygovcost.org calculator, which he said allows users to calculate likely tax liabilities given expected lifetime income and to see what benefits they might receive, and his assessment that most people are losing in that calculation. He credited his predecessors at the Institute with the hard work of building the calculator and said he thought it could be improved over time because much government redistribution occurs in covert ways. Bob Zadek framed that redistribution as the government deciding that some people deserve a listener’s money or property more than the listener does, calling it one of the most sinister, offensive and obnoxious items of governmental policy. The Ohio State doctorate is thus part of the credentialing that precedes Abrams’s substantive claims, not a subject he addressed.
John Mueller
Ohio State figures more substantially in the two February 14, 2022 excerpts featuring John Mueller, author of The Stupidity of War: American Foreign Policy and the Case for Complacency. Bob Zadek introduced Mueller as a senior fellow at the Cato Institute, a member of the Political Science Department and a senior research scientist with the Mershon Center for International Security Studies at Ohio State University, and an expert on terrorism — specifically, as the host put it, not on the conduct of terrorism but on the world’s reaction to it and its understanding of terrorism China & the Stupidity of War (2022). The host also listed Mueller’s books, including Terror, Security and Money, Overblown, Atomic Obsession, War, Presidents and Public Opinion and Retreat from Doomsday: The Obsolescence of Major War. At the close of the episode, Bob Zadek repeated the Ohio State affiliations when thanking Mueller.
Mueller’s own remarks in the excerpt did not mention the university. Asked to explain the word “complacency” as a foreign policy principle, he argued that complacency would have been a better policy than deterrence during the Cold War because there was nothing to deter, that the Soviet Union was not about to attack the United States, and that a more moderate complacency after 9/11 — cautious, careful, deliberate and limited, going after an enemy he described as mostly smoke and mirrors — would have been better than massive over-expenditure and two disastrous wars overseas. He extended the argument to China and Russia, asking what those countries want and answering that they want a bigger role on the world stage, which he suggested was not a real threat. On proliferation, he said countries get nuclear weapons and do not do anything with them, that the number of people killed by nuclear weapons since 1945 is zero, and that deaths from anti-proliferation efforts such as the war in Iraq number in the hundreds of thousands. He also said complacency might apply to Korea, which he said got nuclear weapons and which he suggested might eventually be given sweeteners to give them up, though not in the short term.
Abigail Hall’s citation of Mueller
A separate January 3, 2022 episode offers the only instance in the excerpts where Ohio State is invoked by a guest rather than by the host. Abigail Hall, discussing propaganda and militarism, said that in her chapter on the Transportation Security Administration she built on the work of a number of individuals, particularly the work of John Mueller at Ohio State University and the Cato Institute, who with his co-author Mark Stewart had examined the relative risk of things like terrorism Manufacturing Militarism: A Fresh Look at Propaganda (2022). She reported their finding that the risk of terrorism to someone in the United States is remarkably low — that a person is more likely to be killed by a dog or by bees or snakes than in an act of terrorism, true even within the context of 9/11, and that repeating 9/11 over and over for several years would still not register in the top ten causes of death for the American public. She described the TSA’s messaging as telling the public that flying is unsafe, that terrorism is a real and salient threat, and that citizens must be hyper-vigilant while the TSA searches persons and property, sometimes multiple times, to keep them safe — a message she summarized as: you are unsafe and government is the solution to the problem. She also said the chapter discusses the underwear bomber and the shoe bomber, the security measures implemented afterward such as body scanners and shoe removal for travelers without TSA PreCheck, and the Federal Air Marshals program, with the same pattern recurring: the actual threat is remarkably small, in some cases not statistically different from zero, while the language conveys that people and their families are not safe. Here Ohio State appears as the institutional home of a scholar whose risk research Hall relies on, not as an object of her analysis.
Ned Foley
In the August 22, 2022 episode on enhancing trust in democracy, Bob Zadek introduced Ned Foley as a member of the progressive team for the National Constitution Center’s project on restoring the guardrails of democracy, holding the Ebersold Chair in Constitutional Law at OSU, Ohio State University, and directing the election law program there Enhancing Trust in Democracy (2022). The host described the National Constitution Center as located in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, and as the only institution funded by Congress to enhance understanding and appreciation of the Constitution, with Jeffrey Rosen as its president. He said the Center commissioned three teams — libertarian, progressive and conservative — to identify what is breaking down in the democratic system and propose solutions, and that the reports are available at the Center’s website. Bob Zadek framed election law as central to questions about a sitting president questioning election results, the storming of the Capitol, the questioning of the balloting process, and allegations about access to voting or about too many or the wrong people voting. Foley responded briefly, saying he was a little worried the expectation setting might be just a tad high but that they would do their best. The excerpt ends before the substantive discussion of election law, so the Ohio State affiliation is the whole of what it establishes about the university here.
Across episodes
The excerpts show no development in how Ohio State University is treated: it appears in four episodes spanning 2014 to 2022, always as a credential or institutional home in a host introduction, with the single exception of Abigail Hall’s citation of John Mueller’s risk research. The university is never the topic, and no guest or host in these excerpts discusses its policies, governance or internal affairs.
What the sources do not cover
The excerpts do not state the university’s location, founding date, enrollment, governance or academic programs beyond the three units named: the Political Science Department, the Mershon Center for International Security Studies, and the election law program. They do not say what the Ebersold Chair in Constitutional Law is, when it was established, or what the Mershon Center does. Nothing in the excerpts addresses Ohio State’s own institutional conduct, and the university’s appearance is entirely a function of the guests the show chose to interview.