May 13, 2006
This week's Cindy...
A lefty-loon has resigned his professorship because Rice is speaking at his campus. Thank you Condolezza--well done. He writes:
DEAR Father Leahy,I am writing to resign my post as an adjunct professor of English at Boston College.
I am doing so -- after five years at BC, and with tremendous regret -- as a direct result of your decision to invite Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice to be the commencement speaker at this year's graduation.
Many members of the faculty and student body already have voiced their objection to the invitation, arguing that Rice's actions as secretary of state are inconsistent with the broader humanistic values of the university and the Catholic and Jesuit traditions from which those values derive. [I'll bet those claimed "values" include tolerance for diverse opinions...]
But I am not writing this letter simply because of an objection to the war against Iraq. My concern is more fundamental. Simply put, Rice is a liar.
She has lied to the American people knowingly, repeatedly, often extravagantly over the past five years, in an effort to justify a pathologically misguided foreign policy. [Too true. Liberating the oppressed, fighting terrorism, promoting democracy and economic freedom--can't get much more pathological than that. Why, she's actually helping the wogs VOTE. How un-Christian. Or at least, un-Jesuit.]The public record of her deceits is extensive. During the ramp-up to the Iraq war, she made 29 false or misleading public statements concerning Iraq's weapons of mass destruction and links to Al Qaeda, according to a congressional investigation by the House Committee on Government Reform. [Guess what. We are now learning that Iraq/Al Qaeda ties were MORE extensive than we thought. And The Duelfer Report revealed that even Saddam's own generals and top aides thought Iraq had WMD's. Not to mention all the world's intelligence services. So, clearly, no lie.]
To cite one example:
In an effort to build the case for war, then-National Security Adviser Rice repeatedly asserted that Iraq was pursuing a nuclear weapon, and specifically seeking uranium in Africa. [And the 9/11 Commission Report revealed that Joe Wilson reported to the CIA that Iraq WAS trying to buy Uranium from Niger. Niger's in Africa. (He Wilson lied and said the opposite in his famous NYT op-ed.)]
I'll spare you more back-and-forth. But what really galls me about guys like this is that he doesn't actually believe that telling a lie is so dreadful. This is just posturing because it suits his purpose at the moment. If the subject was one of those lefty anti-war activists who had claimed that the invasion of Iraq would surely lead to deadly WMD attacks, millions of deaths, millions of refugees, chaos across a "destabilized " Middle East, etc, etc.---THOSE lies wouldn't bother him a bit. Nor, you can be sure, was he bothered when Kerry was forced to retract a massive lie during the 2004 campaign.
Posted by John Weidner at May 13, 2006 06:01 PMThere is something bizarrely immature about the insistence that Bush Lied, Cheney Lied, Rice Lied, et cetera. The Left presumes daddy-like omniscience on the part of the administration.
Even if Bush administration statements on WMD and al Qaeda were wrong, they were based on assessments made by the world's intelligence agencies. Critics evidently believe that US officials have supernatural access to the truth, beyond anything the CIA or NSA can provide.
Making an educated but mistaken guess in an environment of uncertainty is not lying. Believing flawed intelligence is not lying. No rational human should need to have this explained to them. And yet, it's a concept that cannot penetrate the left-liberal mind.
Worse, now that captured Iraqi documents vindicate suspicions about Saddam's WMDs and ties to al Qaeda, Bush critics are unable to absorb the new information. Ironically, it turns out that they themselves have been relying upon incomplete data and bad analysis. By their own definition, they are now liars.
Posted by: lyle at May 14, 2006 01:49 AMThe post is interesting and lyle's comment is fantastic. I'm going to link it!! Thank you for putting the whole thing so succinctly. And where oh where is there a university at the moment that encourage REAL philosophical exploration???
Posted by: j_anne at May 14, 2006 06:29 AMSo an adjunct professor quit his job: think the left will sneer at him as a "failed academic"?
Posted by: Dr. Weevil at May 14, 2006 06:48 AMAdjunct professors don't have tenure and are easily replaced. I'll bet you he wasn't at all sure he'd be hired for the next semester so he took the opportunity to grandstand a little. I'll bet you it gets him a cushy tenured position at some other liberal U.
Posted by: Andrea Harris at May 14, 2006 07:43 AMSorry if my last comment was obscure. I forgot which site I was on. In fact, I thought I was at Protein Wisdom, where trolls are constantly accusing the host of being a "failed academic" because he voluntarily quit an adjunct position to stay home with his son.
Posted by: Dr. Weevil at May 14, 2006 08:20 AMJeff made the mistake of not announcing he was quitting for some leftoid polical reasoning. Leaving to take care of your child so your wife can work on her career is so 1999.
Back to the academic under discussion, a thought just occurred to me: I could be wrong -- I wonder if this particular adjunct prof will be treated as disposably as adjuncts are usually treated. After all, he Spoke Truth to Power. They might offer him tenure for this.
Posted by: Andrea Harris at May 14, 2006 07:24 PMSince we have indeed found WMD in Iraq, the continual talk about having never found it is, in itself, a lie. It was there, we found some of it, including poisons, delivery devices, and nuclear fuel both uranium and enriched uranium.
These clowns always act like this to protest Republican administrations. They never do it for Dems. Not one of 'em had the nads to rip Clinton and resign for Clinton's lies.
Idiots!
Posted by: benning at May 15, 2006 10:37 AM
