Month: June 2005

From today’s Borowitz Report:

… Elsewhere, in the latest development in the Schiavo case, medical experts said that the brain of Florida Gov. Jeb Bush was half the size of a normal one.

Taking my cue from CPB chairman Ken Tomlinson, I have conducted an independent, fair and balanced investigation into Pensito Review’s content and I am herewith prepared to make my findings public for the first time.

Pensito Review has been infected by LIBERAL BIAS. Indeed, my exhaustive investigation has failed to turn up a single article or link that could be construed to be the least bit CONSERVATIVE. Double-indeed, the contributors of Pensito Review, as well as its readers who post comments, appear to be consistently atheistic gender-bending commies who hate everything that Americans hold near and dear, and they don’t have any respect for elected politicians or the God-based traditions that have made this country great.

Just look at the way they pick on Gov. Arnold and Gov. Jeb, how often they employ incendiary and inflammatory rhetoric, how snarky and sarcastic they are, how often they use words like “wingnut” and “Repugs” to describe those whose political beliefs they eschew.

Granted, I, too, am a contributor to Pensito Review, but I can put aside my LIBERAL BIAS and evaluate the Weblog with PURE OBJECTIVITY. Plus, I would be willing (for an honorarium of just $20k) to appear before a wingnut Congressional witch-hunting committee and testify about my study of the content of Pensito Review.

For a few dollars more, I’ll even name names (sorry, Jon and Trish).

In an administration full of Teflon-coated liars – President Bush, Vice President Cheney and Secretary of State Rice come to mind – Ken Tomlinson, the Republican chairman of the Corporation for Public Broadcasting (CPB), stands out as perhaps the lying-est liar of them all.

Recently, however, Tomlinson has made a series of public statements that are demonstrably false. Media Matters has compiled a list of the chairman’s provable lies that is so spectacular that it would shock a used car salesman.

The charter of the CBP explicitly states that its role is to protect public broadcasting from political interference. As with the Bushes’ “Clear Skies” initiative that allows for increased air pollution and the myriad other “through the looking glass” policies of this Administration, they have put a political hack into the job of protecting an invaluable cultural resource from political hackery.

You won’t hear about the serial lying of the chairman of the CPB in the mainstream media, so please visit Media Matters for the full descriptions. Meanwhile, here are justa few of his lies from their list:

– In a letter to a U.S. senator, Tomlinson said CPB Kathleen Cox president approved and signed the contract to hire a rightwing media consultant to monitor the Bill Moyers show in order to catch Moyers criticizing President Bush when, in fact, Tomlinson signed the contract himself five months prior to hiring Cox.

–Tomlinson denied that Mary Catherine Andrews had done work for CPB while she was still employed at the White House as director of global communications. A broad inquiry by the CPB inspector general has uncovered a series of emails proving Tomlinson’s above statements false – that Andrews did extensive work for the CPB while on the White House payroll.

–Tomlinson claimed that he had had no communications with Bush White House regarding public broadcasting, but leaked emails show that he regularly took instruction from the White House on arcane matters like appointments to high-ranking positions in the CPB and even the wording of the job title for an appointee.

–Tomlinson said he publicly released polls showing the public did not find liberal bias in reporting on NPR and PBS when, in fact, the polls have yet to be fully released.

–Tomlinson said he hired both a conservative and a liberal omsbudman, but the “liberal” is Ken Bode, a journalist who has publicly supported Republican candidates like Gov. Mitch Daniels of Indiana, who once headed the budget office for Bush II.

These lies by the head of the CPB come to light at the same time that the conservatives who control Congress are passing legislation to de-fund public broadcasting. It is obvious that Tomlinson’s role is to work inside the institution to help the Rightwing tear it down.

You have to wonder if there is anyone who can stop them, or even if anyone cares enough to try.

There’s no question that, thanks to George W. Bush, the religous Right has taken over the U.S. government in Washington, DC. Because of this, as a casual consumer of news you might get the impression that America is the midst of a religious revival – that you and your friends are among a handful of people who do not spend every Saturday night in a revival tent at the edge of town, and every Sunday morning in a pew awaiting the Rapture.

But what about the statistics? Are we becoming a country dominated by religous fervor – and its bastard cousins, Intolerance and Hypocrisy? According to Pascal Riche at TPM Cafe, the answer is no.

First, America is not becoming more religious. The number of noisy evangelist Christians is indeed increasing, but the traditional churches are declining. According to an ARIS Study (see this PDF file), the segment of the population experiencing the greatest growth is the “no-religion” group. The number of declared Christians went from 86.2% in 1990 to 76.5 % in 2001; during the same period, the number of people placing themselves in the “no-religion” camp rose from 8% to 14.1%.

According to a 2002 USA-Today poll, 50% of Americans regard themselves as “religious” (against 54% in 1999), 33 % as “spiritual, but not religious” (30% in 1999) and 10% as “neither religious nor spiritual”.

And fewer and fewer Americans attend church on Sunday. Of course, this country remains deeply religious, because of his origins, but like others countries in the industrialized word, it is secularizing slowly…

It’s interesting that these declines are inversely proportionate to the public’s exposure to the leaders of the American talibani movement – interesting, and just the tiniest bit reassuring.

David Horowitz, the former left-wing nutjob turned right-wing nutjob, is crusading for a movement to, in his words, “increase academic freedom” on college and university campuses. Unfortunately for academia, Horowitz’ inversion of “freedom” means that professors would be forced to teach “serious alternative theories” (read: creationism) that might conflict with their own beliefs.

It’s worth noting that Jeb Bush has endorsed Horowitz, calling him a “fighter for freedom.” That should give you some idea of where Horowitz is on the wingnut spectrum.

As always, Florida is the incubator for new political movements, and is right in the vanguard of the “academic freedom” movement:

Horowitz recently lent his support to Florida State Representative Dennis Baxley’s (R-Ocala) Academic Freedom Bill of Rights. Rep. Baxley’s legislation, which in late-March passed out of the House Choice and Innovation Committee by an 8-to-2 vote (the only two Democrats on the committee voted against it) was a broad assault on academic freedom. Allegedly aimed at leveling the playing field for so-called beleaguered conservatives on the state’s campuses, the devil was clearly in the details.

“Some professors say, ‘Evolution is a fact. I don’t want to hear about Intelligent Design (a creationist theory), and if you don’t like it, there’s the door,'” Rep. Baxley maintained.

A Florida university professor countered Baxley’s claims:

“For a biologist for whom evolution is no more a theory than is the law of gravity, to have to present ‘alternative’ religiously-oriented or inspired views would be contrary to his very understanding of the scientific method. That would be comparable to Galileo being forced to recant his scientific observations that the earth revolved around the sun, and not the opposite as ordained by the Church.”

According to a legislative staff analysis of the bill, students who felt their views were disrespected in the classroom or thought they were singled out for “public ridicule” by their professors would have the right to sue them and the university.

During the debate over the Baxley bill, opponents argued that allowing students to sue their professors would create chaos in the classroom and force judges to determine what might or might not be academically appropriate.

According to the St. Petersburg Times, Rep. Baxley decided to join Horowitz’s crusade after he “attended a conservative conference in St. Louis last summer where Horowitz spoke about academic freedom. The message struck a chord [and] … after talking to Horowitz,” he introduced his bill in the Florida Legislature.

While Rep. Baxley’s bill ultimately failed to garner enough support this legislative session, its introduction signaled the beginning of a battle in Florida that could go on for a number of years and eventually result in a future law.

Besides Florida, 13 other states have introduced some type of “academic freedom” legislation, including California, Maine, Colorado and Minnesota.