Political Snippets

Eason Jordan Resigns at CNN

Eason Jordan was the head of CNN’s news division. Recently, at an economic summit in Davos, Switzerland, he stated in a closed door session that US troops in Iraq had purposely targeted journalists for killing and had successfully killed some.

Although transcripts of the session have not been released, several who were there have publicly announced their outrage at Jordan’s comments.

Panel attendee Senator Christopher Dodd (D-CT) issued a statement that he "was outraged by the comments. Senator Dodd is tremendously proud of the sacrifice and service of our American military personnel."

Jordan is the same man who admitted that he had had data on instances of Saddam Hussein’s brutal activities, prior to our launching the war in Iraq, but he had withheld that information and not reported it on CNN, in order to maintain good relations with and access to Saddam Hussein’s regime. Of course we can understand that access to a brutal dictator is more important than reporting the truth.

After a week of trying to claim that his remarks were misunderstood, Eason resigned. Good riddance. We can do without such reflexive anti-Americanism at the helm of CNN.

Teddy Kennedy: He Blinded Me with Criminal Partisanship

A few days before the historical vote in Iraq on January 30th, in which millions of courageous Iraqis braved death threats from Osama bin Laden and Abu Musab al-Zarqawi to vote for the first time in half a century, Teddy Kennedy jumped on the criminal partisanship brigade. I will define "criminal partisanship" as making statements or taking actions intended to hurt the opposition party and to help your party, but that are very destructive to the country as a whole. In other words, being so blindly partisan that you don’t even notice or care that you’re hurting the country.

Kennedy jumped on this brigade by making a speech in which he stated that American troops in Iraq are part of the problem, not part of the solution. He called for immediately bringing home 12,000 troops, and for a timetable to bring them all home. Remember, this is right before the Iraqi election.

President Bush rejected the notion of a timetable for bringing home the troops in his State of the Union address, noting that we would bring home the troops after we had won. What a concept. Kennedy is still operating off the failed liberal Vietnam concept of pulling the troops out because the media has convinced the public that we are losing and that it’s a useless and failed fight. Bush is operating off the idea of the US winning.

Our victory in the region, meaning turning Iraq into a democratic state and not letting the terrorists win, is vital to our security interests. And we are well on our way to that victory. If Kennedy wasn’t so blinded by his own criminal partisanship, he would see that.

Ward Churchill’s 1st Amendment Rights

Ward Churchill is a tenured professor at Colorado University. In an essay he wrote that workers at the World Trade Center who perished on 9/11 deserved what they got because they were the equivalent of "little Eichmanns," a reference to Nazi Adolf Eichmann. He later said that he was referring to "technocrats" who participate in what he calls repressive American policies around the world. Churchill also spoke of the "gallant sacrifices" of the "combat teams" that struck America on 9/11.

Colorado Governor Bill Owens has called for Churchill to be fired. The university’s Board of Regents is investigating whether he can be removed.

"While Professor Churchill has the constitutional right to express his political views, his essay on 9/11 has outraged and appalled us and the general public," interim CU-Boulder Chancellor Phil DiStefano said.

Churchill, whose pickup truck was vandalized with swastikas in Boulder recently, has promised to sue the school if he is removed.

Paula Zahn interviewed Churchill on her show on CNN, asking him if he was referring to ALL the victims of 9/11 – the food servers and floor sweepers too?

Of course not! thundered the professor. They were innocent. The "Eichmann" Nazis, he explained, were the ones "speaking self-importantly into their cell phones, arranging power lunches and stock transfers and ignoring the rotting flesh of half a million infants."

After a week of controversy, the ACLU has now issued a statement defending Churchill’s right to speak out and calling on regents, legislators and the governor "to stop threatening Mr. Churchill’s job because of the content of his opinions."

I think this is an interesting case, although I agree with Newsmax columnist Barry Farber who says that Churchill is making a cheap shot for fame by making these outrageous statements, and our best revenge is to forget him as soon as possible.

The question though, is whether or not a public university has the right to fire a professor for making outrageous anti-American statements. The First Amendment only guarantees him the freedom to make such statements in America, it doesn’t guarantee that he’ll continue to be employed.

Unfortunately, American universities in the past few decades have tended to welcome such anti-American rhetoric, no doubt influenced by the writings of Howard Zinn, Noam Chomsky and Gore Vidal, whom author Daniel J. Flynn calls "The Three Stooges of Anti-Americanism" in his most recent excellent book "Intellectual Morons."