PUBLIC NUISANCES: Secretive and Smug/Showdown at Harvard State
Tyrrell, R. Emmett Jr.
PUBLIC NUISANCES R. E M M E T T TYRRELL, JR. S Secretive and Smug O WE HEAR THAT PRESIDENT GEORGE W. BUSH is taking delight in the spread of the "alternative press" (read conservatives on the...
...From Democratic politics one drifts into journalism, often TVjournaiism...
...I have spent much of my life with journalists, beginning in competitive swimming and moving on to politics and culture...
...They agree with Dr...
...The Ombudsman's odd response was to e-mail me that she was sending the letter to her "national editor to see about correcting your name...
...These threats were not deemed credible by Dr...
...Aside from offending Dr...
...Large: it is not true that "the crowd was against" former congressman Bob Barr's libertarian criticism of the Bush administration's surveillance policies...
...The American Spectator's publisher is A1 Regnery whose name is easier to spell...
...Cornel West to give up composing rap songs and try his hand at scholarship...
...At the time he bluntly spoke out against anti-Semitism among elites...
...Both Bob and I considered the audience pretty evenly divided...
...S Secretive and Smug O WE HEAR THAT PRESIDENT GEORGE W. BUSH is taking delight in the spread of the "alternative press" (read conservatives on the Internet, in talk radio, in print, and at Fox) and the gentle detumescence of"mainstream media" (read liberal media, or more precisely Democratic media...
...Even for a sociologist she is barbaric...
...Is it because their ethics are so elusive...
...They seem friendly enough...
...He will be replaced by the interim presidency of HSU's president from 1971 to 1991, Derek C. Bok, 75, once Bok is located...
...Summers' staff, but that they were circulating on the HSU campus adumbrates the eerie atmosphere that now pervades this 370-yearold institution of higher learning...
...The anger toward him never abated even after Dr...
...Professor West opted for Princeton despite the university's experience with the paramilitary group, Concerned Alumni of Princeton, revealed by Senator Edward Kennedy at the Alito hearings...
...Journalists are forever breaking into dry discourses on their "journalistic ethics...
...My letter has never been printed, and the Ombudsman's response was another example of the liberal journalist's weirdness...
...It is as though they were members of one of those weird California cults...
...Perhaps his colleagues from the Clinton years would have stuck by him if the cause of his troubles was sex with an undergraduate, but the embattled president's problems were deemed too serious...
...Indignant, Professor West left HSU for Princeton, where he doubtless feels vindicated, and might even write a song about his rival's demise, perhaps one that can be recorded by Jay-Z...
...President Summers also suggested that Professor West ease up on counseling the prospective presidential campaign of the Rev...
...Consider a controversy I found myself in in February...
...Why are they so sensitive about their ethics...
...APRIL 2006 THE AMERICAN SPECTATOR 71...
...Summers' five-yearold presidencywas trulyvoluntary or forced upon him, there is controversy...
...70 THE AMERICAN SPECTATOR APRIL 2006 PUBLIC NUISANCES As I say, there is often something smug and secretive about these journalists...
...Conservatives are divided on this issue, revealing again that there is variety of opinion among conservatives, a variety of opinion one rarely encounters among liberals...
...He had also attempted to bring ROTC to campus...
...The best are energetic, curious, often intelligent, occasionally well-read...
...I find that odd...
...Consequently, as it was a panel I presided over, I wrote a clarifying letter to the editor, sending a copy to the paper's Ombudsman...
...Emmett Tyrrell, Jr., the editor in chief of the American Spectator...
...This is a serious guy...
...She is among the university's most rancorous and self-pitying faculty members...
...Several days later in the paper's "Corrections" section here is what was printed: The Feb...
...As to whether the end of Dr...
...11 Washington Sketch misspelled the name off...
...The New York Times reports that he "privately concluded" a week before resigning that he should depart "after members of Harvard's governing corporation and friends-particularly from the Clinton Administration-made it clear that his presidency was lost...
...Small: I am not"a conservative publisher" but rather the editor in chief of The American Spectator, a position I have held for nearly 38 years...
...Here is the unpublished letter: Dana Milbank's report of the Conservative Political Action Conference's debate on civilliberties, moderated by me, is inaccurate in matters large and small...
...created controversy when he advised black studies professor Dr...
...His gravest misstep occurred when at an academic conference he suggested research into whether the paucity of women among the top ranks in science and math was the consequence of innate gender differences...
...Summers did himself no good with the faculty by becoming a hero to the student body...
...Earlier President Summers, an economist and one of the few Clinton administration cabinet members never investigated by an Independent Counsel (the administration attracted seven...
...Usually, even in covering sports, the journalists have been liberal Democrats...
...But others are lively...
...Summers offered to resign upon receiving credible threats from sectarian elements within the influential Faculty of Arts and Sciences to blow up the university's football stadium where its semi -pro football team plays in the fall and the university's renowned trans-sexual field hockey team competes in springtime...
...On occasion they are feverishly friendly, but then one senses something else, a secretiveness, a smugness, and in many instances, a peculiar conformity...
...From journalism one drifts into Democratic politics...
...He was a very agreeable fellow, but two decades later he ended up as campaign press secretary during A1 Gore's first run for the White House...
...A strong leader is not just someone who can name a goal or force a change, but someone who can bring out the best in people," commented one of the offending president's most vociferous critics, Professor Mary C. Waters, an HSU sociologist...
...Most of the time when I find myself in a journalistic controversy I do come away with the conviction that the ethics of the mainstream journalist-the liberal Democratic journalist-are, well, rubbery...
...I recall a Sports Illustrated writer who used to come out to Indiana to cover my world champion teammates on the Indiana University swimming team...
...From the African and African-American Studies Department there were also threats of roadside bombs to be detonated against professors caught smoking pipes on their way to class-a habit recently picked up by some younger women faculty members-or against students ostentatiously carrying books to class...
...Mainstream media have created the quaint position of the Ombudsman, out of concern for journalistic "ethics...
...Think of Chris Matthews, Tim Russert, and George Stephanopoulos...
...Such Byzantine maneuvering goes on all the time in the "mainstream media," which is why they have lost the trust of so manyAmericans...
...Professor West's rap lyrics actually never achieved the violence or licentiousness to attract a wide audience anyway...
...Knowledgeable observers around Harvard Yard recognize that many faculty members are very jealous of the undergraduates, viewing them as handsomer, prettier, and in some cases much better skateboarders...
...A report on the debate by Dana Milbank in the Washington Post proved to be clearly inaccurate, even mischievously inaccurate...
...My sources report that Dr...
...Milbank botched my middle name as well...
...The weekend before his resignation the student newspaper, the Crimson, published a poll showing that some 70 percent of the university's undergraduates wanted him to stay...
...West, he had caused a terrible hullabaloo by opposing grade inflation and complacency on the faculty...
...That provoked a 218-185 no-confdence vote from the faculty...
...I judged the audience pretty much equally divided, as did Barr and Dinh...
...Of course, the burden of my complaint was that Milbank was playing sophomorically with the facts of the event and misleading his readers "in matters large and small:' That is what mainstream media and Ombudsmen in particular are supposed to be concerned about...
...Well, I join him in his satisfaction...
...Some of these journalists are very dreary duds...
...A1 Sharpton...
...There exists considerable disagreement among conservatives on this issue, as has been widely reported...
...Showdown at Harvard State i I HAVE IT ON THE BEST OF AUTttOPdTY that Harvard State University's President Lawrence H. Summers resigned only after credible threats of violence were received at his office...
...Summers also caused controversywhen he disagreed with faculty members who wanted the university to divest itself of corporate investments in Israel...
...Yet I have often sensed something off-putting about them...
...Summers' frequent abject apologies...
...Also the undergraduates are seen as a threat to the professoriate's self-esteem, as many do not watch much television or play video games...
...It was an intelligent give-and-taKe...
...My sources, working from several listening posts on the campus disguised as homeless people, report that Dr...
...Well, that is the way things have been in American journalism...
...I chaired a panel at the Conservative Political Action Conference, featuring a debate between former Justice Department official Viet Dinh and former congressman Bob Barr on government surveillance...
...What she considers "the best" in people remains unclear...
...The above "correction" hid the real issue regarding the Milbank report...
...Even its identification of me was cryptic, evading the initial misidentification of me...
...Summers that Harvard State University should be a citadel of learning even if that means reading books rather than conducting witch-hunts...
...Once a news organization has lost the public's trust it has very little to offer...
...As such, I have been interviewed by Milbank in the past, and my last name has not one "r" but two...
Vol. 39 • April 2006 • No. 3
