[aligncare]

Having a fat resume does not make one immune from political leanings. I have found that one's political orientation will often allow the data to be viewed in a way that supports that orientation - or even worse, the researcher misinterpets the data willfully for the sake of politics. Though, I'm not saying this researcher has done the latter. Just that Santa Cruz is notoriously liberal.

[adorno]

.. for the sake of politics.

And quite ofter, for the sake of government grants to the universitites for research..

[cogitator]

As I said in a previous reply, the institution's political alignment may or may not influence an individual professor's politics. This professor has been studying the PETM for awhile now, and I expect that his understanding of it, and his ability to compare then and now in a climate sense, is not overly influenced by politics. The media interpretation of what he says, and even the press releases produced by the institution, may certainly give it a lefthand spin.