Strengthening Constitutional Self-Government

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Bill Maher and the base Churchill

From the sublime Winston Churchill (who claimed to be also an American) to the absurd Ward Churchill (who claims many untrue things).

Jeff Jarvis saw Ward on with Bill Maher last night and has a few comments. It turns out that both Ward and Bill are both caterpillars of the commonwealth! Democracy guy also has a few choice words on the subject.

I’m glad I didn’t see it.
If you have the stomach, read Jarvis.

Discussions - 5 Comments

Nice how "Democracy guy" calls for Maher to be fired - hey, maybe you NLT guys ARE right that Democrats are irrelevant! Wait a minute, Maher isn’t on PBS... Isn’t he on cable? Come on fellas, remember your worship of the miraculous marketplace. As long as Maher’s ratings are decent, then the company he works for oughta be able to keep airing him, right? (or does your Logic of the Marketplace have an escape clause for people saying things that you don’t like?). Didn’t he already get canned from ABC for arguing against the idea that suicide bombers are cowardly (oh, those liberal networks!)?

I remember John Moser speculated a few weeks back that Harvard pres. Lawrence Summers was more likely to get fired than Ward Churchill for their respective sins. Well, so far, the only demotion that has occurred, that I’m aware of, was Churchill stepping down as chair of his dept., under great pressure, of course. And there are now calls for talk show hosts to be fired for even talking with the guy.

Maybe this will change in the next month or so (maybe only Maher will be punished?) but, as far as I know, Summers is still untouched at Harvard. I think Moser’s forecast was a bit off.

BTW, I’m opposed to Summers getting fired for his speech/remarks

BTW, I’m opposed to Summers getting fired for his speech/remarks

Since you’ve invoked my name here, let me just say that I don’t think Churchill should be fired for his idiotic comments either. The sad thing is that there are probably good reasons for removing him (falsifying his ethnic origins, lack of scholarship, or what have you), but if he is fired now everyone would assume it was for his opinions. And people like Ms. Resnis would be jumping up and down screaming about incipient McCarthyism. Academic freedom, alas, means just what it says.

Incidentally, I was not predicting that Summers would be fired. I merely stated that he is more likely to lose his job than is Churchill. Ceasing to be department chair is hardly a big deal--I’ve seen what the job entails, and Churchill’s better off without it.

Ms. Resnis,

I Don’t recall anyone on this blog calling for Bill Maher to be fired for this and "Democracy Guy" happens to be a Democrat, not a Republican.

Interestingly enough, I watched the show. I TiVo’ed it, in fact. It was interesting to me that the Maher said that he disagreed with some of the things said, and that there were only a few small things that he thought deserved more thought. Maher said something along the lines of "..someone needs to walk out to the edge to find out where it is..." and Churchill is doing that. It has created conversation about the America we deal with today--God forbid we have "outside the box thinkers", I know.

The thing is, Churchill on Maher’s show made Churchill look more like a fool and an unappologetic stiff than ever before. He was given ample opportunity, on a show few really get around to watching, mind you, to make right on his idiotic and misplaced claims.

Perhaps people are upset about Maher’s comment about putting a plaque up to tell why terrorists hate us at Ground Zero. Rightfully so. But Maher was hardly in favor of Ward Churchill. I think that he was uncomfortable having the man on the show--if you actually watch it and see his body language, Maher looks a bit afraid of the whack-job.

Mr. Moser - Ward Churchill took a substantial pay cut when he stepped down from being the chair of the dept. You might claim that he’s "better off without it," but to anyone living outside the ivory towers it looks as if his actions were taken under pressure, before someone above him at the Univ. took punitive actions of their own. I think that the events that have occurred thus far show that Churchill’s job was in greater peril than Summers’ ever was.

Mr. Roark - So, "Democracy Guy" is a Democrat(I KNOW)...and???

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