Leading up to the 2016 presidential election, Andrew Bowen, like many scholars in Washington, predicted Hillary Clinton would surely win.
Bowen, then a global fellow in the Middle East Program at the Wilson Center, wrote a weekly column in Arab News, an English-language outlet based in Saudi Arabia. In his columns before the election, Bowen frequently criticized Donald Trump, denouncing his temper and xenophobic remarks and calling him “a man not often suited to the responsibilities of the presidency.”
Like many others, Bowen was shocked on Nov. 8. But within days, his tone changed, calling for a “new beginning” under President Trump.
Now, months later, Arab News says that Bowen requested that it delete his earlier, pre-election columns, stating he needed “to be cleared” for a possible job with the Trump administration’s State Department.
Arab News initially refused to take down the articles, and fired back — publicly. In an unapologetic post on its website, Arab News announced Tuesday it would be discontinuing Bowen’s column, explaining Bowen’s request and blasting it as “unprofessional journalistically, particularly given that there were no factual errors or libelous comments that require a redaction or correction.”
Here is what Foreign Policy has to say about this incident. As Think Tank Watch previously noted, any attacks on Trump by think tankers have made it nearly impossible for them to get jobs in the Trump Administration.
Bowen was reportedly recommended for the State Department post by Brian Hook, co-founder of the John Hay Initiative, a group of former Mitt Romney foreign policy advisors.
Andrew Bowen is now a Visiting Scholar at the American Enterprise Institute (AEI), focusing on the Middle East. His biography says that he concurrently advises Greenmantle (an economic/geopolitical advisory firm) and writes a weekly column for Al Arabiya English.
He was previously a Global Fellow at the Wilson Center and Senior Fellow and Director of Middle East for the Center for the National Interest.
