Over at Brian Leiter's blog, the Coffee v. Romano, Ribstein, and Bainbridge tiff continued with an exchange between Coffee and Romano. At the end of the post, however, Brian posts the following message from Professor Coffee:
"Given that we are at Christmas Eve, I would like to close off this dialogue by clearly expressing my view that Professors Romano, Bainbridge and Ribstein are all highly creative and original scholars (with whom I sometimes, but not always, disagree strongly). Professor Romano is quite correct that my Cornell paper as of the conference date had many incomplete or missing footnotes. To that charge, I do plead guilty. Seasons Greetings to all."
With Christmas just behind us and the incredibly shocking passing of my dear friend Larry Ribstein, I look back on this tiff and am reminded of the aphorism that academic politics are so vicious preciserly because so little is at stake. I very much appreciate Professor Coffee's final comments and reciprocate. He is deservedly one of the giants of the field and he ended up taking a very classy position. As far as I'm concerned, this hatchet is buried.
