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Politics : Just the Facts, Ma'am: A Compendium of Liberal Fiction -- Ignore unavailable to you. Want to Upgrade?

To: Suma who wrote (29075)	2/13/2005 11:40:46 AM
From: longnshort	Respond to of 90947

Bill Moyers' journalism tree A blogger brought to my attention a column by Bill Moyers in the Minneapolis Star Tribune on Jan. 29, titled "There is no tomorrow." The third paragraph reads as follows: "Remember James Watt, President Ronald Reagan's first secretary of the interior? My favorite online environmental journal, the ever-engaging Grist, reminded us recently of how James Watt told the U.S. Congress that protecting natural resources was unimportant in light of the imminent return of Jesus Christ. In public testimony he said, "After the last tree is felled, Christ will come back." I have never thought, believed or said such words. Nor have I ever said anything that could be interpreted by a reasonable person to mean anything similar to the quote attributed to me. The paragraph does have one true statement about me. I did serve as President Reagan's first secretary of the interior. I am very proud of having been associated with such a great president. After 20-plus years of hindsight, I am delighted that the revolution I helped to bring about remains fixed in America. The Moyers column tells that one truth about me. It also tells us a lot about Mr. Moyers. First, he did no primary or objective research, because there is no record, in congressional hearings or elsewhere, attributing such words to me. Mr. Moyers is of at least average in intelligence and has a basic understanding of Christian beliefs and therefore he knows that no Christian would believe what he attributed to me. Because Mr. Moyers served in the White House under President Johnson, he knows that no person avowing such a thing would be qualified for a presidential appointment, nor would he be confirmed by the U.S. Senate, or if confirmed and said such a thing would be allowed to continue to serve. Since Mr. Moyers must have known such a statement would not have been made and refused or failed to do any primary research on this supposed quote, what was his motive in printing such a damnable lie? Did he want to demean or degrade a man who has been out of the public arena for 22 years? Did he seek to damage the cause of Christ by attributing lies to His followers? Did he want to try to damage the record of President Reagan by repeating such an outrageous claim of a selfish interest group? One way out of the mess would be for Mr. Moyers to respond by saying, "I did not say you said that, I correctly reported that Grist magazine (or whoever) said you said that." That is the cowardly way out of this corrupted column of his. It is what many of the mainstream media did when I was in the Cabinet and caught a news reporter or CBS anchorman attributing statements to me that I never made. Another way to handle this matter, the way many in the mainstream media would handle it, is to simply ignore me and the matter and continue on with ruthless disregard for the truth. Or, he could simply apologize to me in the same space and with the same flair he used to impugn me. Then the public might respect him as the honest man he should want to be. (In some primary research on Mr. Moyers, I found he also used this damnable quote when receiving the Harvard Medical School's Global Environment Citizen Award from Meryl Streep. If they honored him for environmental reporting, and the basis of Mr. Moyers' reporting is no greater than the lie repeated about me, I question their judgment in giving him the award.) JAMES G. WATT James G. Watt was President Ronald Reagan's first secretary of the interior.

To: Suma who wrote (29075)	2/13/2005 11:48:53 AM
From: longnshort	Read Replies (1) \| Respond to of 90947

Lesson in double standards By Michael Needham Professor Ward Churchill stirred up the proverbial hornet's nest when he publicly insulted the victims of the September 11, 2001, terrorist attacks. Now many of his students and colleagues at the University of Colorado have jumped to his defense — and, in the process, illustrated the double standards infecting our nation's universities. Suddenly, the same academic elite who champion political correctness and enforce campus speech codes have rediscovered the First Amendment. Of course, it took an unbalanced nut case from their side to open their eyes. That may seem harsh, but consider what Mr. Churchill said. In an essay published just after September 11, he called the people killed in the World Trade Center's Twin Towers "little Eichmanns" (after executed Nazi Adolph Eichmann). "True enough, they were civilians of a sort," he wrote. "But innocent? Gimme a break. They formed a technocratic corps at the very heart of America's global financial empire." So when Mr Churchill was invited to speak at Hamilton College in Clinton, N.Y., students and alumni understandably expressed outrage. Mr. Churchill's supporters see it differently. Emma Perez, associate chair of Colorado University's ethnic studies department, says its faculty gives "full and unconditional support" to Mr. Churchill and his First Amendment right to express himself. "Full and unconditional support" of an individual who praised the "gallant sacrifices" of the "combat teams" that struck America. Where was this full and unconditional support a few years ago at a peer liberal arts college of Hamilton's? At my alma mater, Williams College in Williamstown, Mass., liberals were tripping over themselves to condemn the Record, the student newspaper, for running a controversial paid advertisement. The controversy erupted over the suggestion that anti-Semitism — or "Arab and Islamic Jew-hatred," as author David Horowitz called it in his ad — was the root cause of the Arab-Israeli conflict. Regardless of your opinions, Mr. Horowitz's view has more validity than Mr. Churchill's claim the defenseless and innocent September 11 victims were "little Eichmanns." Not so in the twisted world of American higher education. Almost immediately, five professors and the college chaplain and associate chaplain condemned Mr. Horowitz' paid expression: "Hate speech and inflammatory rhetoric poison the public sphere, and subtly censor victims by frightening them from participating in the arena of public discourse. At a liberal arts college, we can and should hope for better." One doesn't find the same concern today that Mr. Churchill's language might "subtly censor" or "frighten" those who disagree with his characterization of Americans from "participating in the arena of public discourse." The next week, 24 faculty members (the Williams faculty only had about 220 at the time) joined the chorus condemning the paper: "The David Horowitz book advertisement in the Oct. 29 issue contains the sort of racial and religious bigotry and hatred that should have no place on this campus." Sounds very different from the sentiments of Hamilton College's director of communications: "Hamilton, like any institution committed to the free exchange of ideas, brings to its campus people of diverse opinions, often controversial." But what's different between the Churchill and Horowitz cases — other than the author's viewpoint? For its part, the Record (of which I was executive editor) stood by its decision to run the ad: "The public sphere is a place where any idea should be allowed so that it can be argued on its own merits and, if necessary, rejected on its merits." Ward Churchill has a right to his despicable views, and he has a right to air them publicly. Now he is finding the public sphere is ruthless in rejecting hatred, bigotry and idiocy. Mr. Churchill exercised his First Amendment rights in upholding the "gallant sacrifices" of terrorist thugs. Hamilton students and alumni exercised their First Amendment rights by protesting use of college resources to bring a notorious charlatan to campus. Similarly, Colorado citizens are expressing their rights by rejecting use of their tax dollars to fund Mr. Churchill's "scholarship." A consistent understanding of the First Amendment, however, has no place in the perverse world of American academia. Liberals instead have created an environment where ideas that challenge their worldview can be dismissed as "bigotry and hatred that should have no place on this campus," while actual bigotry and hatred is defended. As Ward Churchill would say, "Gimme a break." Michael Needham is chief of staff at the Heritage Foundation.

To: Suma who wrote (29075)	2/13/2005 7:46:17 PM
From: Sully-	Respond to of 90947

Well, the liberal MSM failed to cover the story until Eason Jordan resigned in disgrace even though this was a huge story from day one. When the liberal MSM finally did begin to cover it, they mostly distorted the story. Then they failed to reveal significant facts detrimental to Jordan. Even though the blogs thoroughly investigated the story & got the facts out there, the liberal MSM smeared the blogs & falsely made Jordan a victim of the blogs. In that case there is no such thing as overkill. It's about the truth. It's about how the liberal MSM lies, distorts & covers up when one of their own maliciously slanders our military with what could be considered acts of treachery.

To: Suma who wrote (29075)	2/13/2005 10:30:45 PM
From: Sully-	Read Replies (1) \| Respond to of 90947

The inevitable McCarthyism charge Powerline blog Now that Eason Jordan has resigned, folks are eager to defend him instead of trying to ignore his situation. The defense comes in two forms: first, that he made a mistake but that the mistake should not have cost him his job; second, that he is the victim of McCarthyism, sacked for expressing unpopular views. The answer to both defenses is essentially the same. Once strong evidence emerged that Jordan had accused the U.S. military of systematically murdering journalists, his legitimate options were the following: (1) he could try to show, through the tape of his remarks, that he made no such accusation, (2) he could present evidence to support his charge, (3) he could retract his charge and apologize, or (4) he could modify his charge and present evidence to support the new charge. Jordan opted for none of the above. At that point, the question became whether CNN would be led by a monger of vicious and unsupported anti-American rumors. CNN, hoping to remain distinct from Al Jazeera at least for the time being, apparently answered that question in the negative. Where's the injustice to Jordan in this scenario? Posted by deacon powerlineblog.com