But the problems with this approach actually run much deeper. In Orientalism, Said argued that the traditional scholarly study of the Middle East constituted a racist and imperialist discourse. As borrowed from Foucault, the concept of discourse refers to a set of interconnected ideas. One of the most distinctive conceptual elements of "discourse" is that it is not rule-bound; its connective threads are neither empirical nor logical but political and often comprise a disparate collection of ideas strung together in a come-what-may manner...Borrowing thoughts and ideas indiscriminately from the worlds of literary criticism, literature, law, politics and in this instance from archeology, they construct their analyses with little concern for empirical or logical connectedness. Like mythology, they are masters of the found object, and pull in anything to create a story. This methodology has no connection to science. Its power lies in its politics and its aesthetics, and not in such boring ideas as validity and reliability...

Said did not mention the Armenians even once in his book, for it would have made his passive, victimized Islamic world look rather less passive and not at all the victim. It is a glaring omission. Said's book was properly dismissed by many prominent reviewers as amateurish and dishonest—though on other grounds. They did not even notice the Turkish and Armenian aspect. The book might have been consigned to well-deserved oblivion...

• Can tendentious, politically motivated, subjective, polemical, unbalanced, and/or intentionally misleading and inaccurate publications qualify the possessor of a terminal degree for tenure in his or her field?
• Is the promotion of a personal, political agenda under the guise of an academic discipline legitimate scholarship protected by academic freedom?
• Are disseminating demonstrably erroneous information and extolling the destruction of primary data acceptable elements of publications considered for academic advancement?