Saturday, September 29, 2007

Jesse Jackson Dissembles

Jesse Jackson, from a recent appearance on the O'Reilly Factor:
O'REILLY: OK. Now let's go down to Jena, Louisiana, and Duke, North Carolina. You were unfairly, I believe, criticized in the Duke case. All you did was say that you'd pay the college tuition for the accuser, whether she was guilty or not. You didn't go down and protest. You didn't do anything else.

JACKSON: And --

O'REILLY: When you saw --

JACKSON: And --

O'REILLY: When you saw --

JACKSON: Wait a minute.

O'REILLY: Wait, wait, wait.

JACKSON: That was the big media lie, because --

O'REILLY: Right.

JACKSON: -- I did not go. Al didn't want to go.

O'REILLY: So, now you know how I feel.

JACKSON: Well --

O'REILLY: Now you know who [sic] I feel. It was a big media lie. Now you know how I feel.

JACKSON: But now --

O'REILLY: But wait, wait, wait. When you heard that those three white students, whose families were wrecked, whose lives were wrecked for more than a year, were not guilty, what did you say?

JACKSON: We celebrated their relief. We said it was a good thing.

Actually, here's what Jackson said and did, in an interview with John Williams of WGN Radio. He conceded that it was wrong for Mangum to have lied—though, he noted, people needed to start asking the question, “What about the girls’ careers?” In a delicate description of Mike Nifong’s conduct, Jackson asserted, “The prosecutor was playing light with his cards.” And, he concluded, he was glad that the players “were not found guilty.”

Actually, of course, they were declared innocent.

Three times he was asked whether he would apologize to the players for his spring 2006 actions; three times he refused. Instead, he continued the character assault. It was, he chided, a “very hazardous party,” indeed an “orgasmic(!) party.” He continued: “There’s no moral value in that party”—as if anyone had claimed that there were.

The people to blame were the players themselves: “They did put themselves at risk, and therefore they had to pay a real social price for it.” Anyhow, their parents had enough money to get them off, whereas a “lot of people” don’t have the resources and go to jail. Jackson did not say if he had offered to use Rainbow/PUSH funds to pay the college tuition of those who had falsely accused any other people.

[Maybe that's how Jackson considers "celebrating" an exoneration?]

When asked point-blank by host John Williams whether he had made a mistake, Jackson channeled John Feinstein:

John Williams: “Are you going to admit to them [the lacrosse players] that you made a mistake; and that your mistake had consequences, unintended, to them?

Jackson: [Pauses.] I didn’t make a mistake.
My appeal was for the truth to come out. We did not indict them. We said, let the truth—do not spare the investigation.

[So that’s what Jackson meant when he said that the Rainbow/PUSH coalition would pay Crystal Mangum’s college tuition, even if it were proven that she lied.]

Because this happens much too frequently, John, where the rich prey upon the poor, where men prey upon women.
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What did Jackson mean by “this”? A false accusation of rape? Rush-to-judgment attitudes among an elite university’s faculty? Prosecutorial misconduct excused by the state NAACP?

Jackson never said.

At another point in the interview, he again retreated to vagueness, contending, “After all, this is a pattern in the South.”

Williams asked Jackson whether the reverend was going to protest every college frat party. He could have asked whether Jackson also opposes groups of women holding stripper parties or attending explicit spring break parties. And it’s worth knowing whether it is now the official policy of the Rainbow/PUSH coalition to pay the college tuition of all women who file false claims of rape. If not, why did Jackson make an exception in this instance?

What’s the chief lesson of the case? Jackson explains:

I would say that the act of men luring women with their moneys for their private gratification—we must admit that is unethical . . . and highly risky. Therefore, that very act is ill-advised. And you put yourself in a very perilous predicament. And they did.
And what, exactly, did Jackson say in mid-April 2006?

Something happened on the night of March 13th—something so compelling that Durham District Attorney Michael Nifong was prompted to say, 'This case is not going away . . . We know that the two women were abused . . . The Duke scandal should lead colleges across the country to hold searching discussions about racial and sexual stereotypes, exposing the myths that entrap so many. But it shouldn’t take the brutalizing of a mother of two to raise these issues.

But Jackson and O'Reilly have rewritten history, and suggested that the Rev. did nothing else other than the bizarre offer to pay Mangum's tuition.

41 comments:

Anonymous said...

Is O'Reilly a Communist?

Anonymous said...

History is rewritten all of the time, eh, Prof. Johnson?

Anonymous said...

Here in Chicago everybody understands that Jesse Jackson is just another hood running a protection racket. ("Nice little business you've got here. Pity if you were to get boycotted because someone's called you a racist. I can make sure that doesn't happen.") Why anyone gives him air time is beyond me.

Anonymous said...

I don't know who is more ridiculous, Bill O'Reilly whose narcissism screws up every interview or Jesse Jackson, the unrepentant race hustler.

It's too bad that O'Reilly is the face out there for the conservative cause during prime time in the evening. He has made pointless so many interviews where he could have trashed the idiocy of race hustlers like Jackson or Sharpton.

Debrah said...

LOL!!!

I saw bits and pieces of that interview. IMO, O'Reilly was so excited that he had finally scored this major coup of getting Jackson to "come on into 'The Factor' " that he asked soft questions...especially about the lacrosse case and Jena.

It wasn't a great discussion by any means because O'Reilly didn't press Jackson the way he does most other guests.

Everyone knows that Jesse Jackson is incapable of telling the truth regarding anything having to do with race....consequently, that appearance was a little tap dance for ratings.

Jackson wouldn't even concede on camera that CNN had slandered Juan Williams in a very grotesque way.

One commenter on CNN called Juan Williams "a happy Negro"......simply because he tries to do things and discuss things that might produce some kind of understanding and common sense.

*****************************************

What’s the chief lesson of the case? Jackson explains:

"I would say that the act of men luring women with their moneys for their private gratification—we must admit that is unethical . . . and highly risky. Therefore, that very act is ill-advised. And you put yourself in a very perilous predicament. And they did."


Hey Jesse, you would know all about that subject, would you not?

How's that baby from the bun-in-the-oven you produced with a married woman who worked under you--both literally and figuratively?

Remember when you took that same woman with you to the White House---carrying that bun-in-the-oven---to "counsel" Eleanor Roosevelt lookalike, Cheslea Clinton?

For public consumption, you were trying to provide a balm as only you can do for the fact that her Daddy, Billy Jeff, had been keeping a chubby intern, not much younger than she, under his desk for a few years.

Shock and awe!

Did it work Jesse?

ROTFLM-T's-O !!!

Debrah said...

In the H-S today:


Jay Bilas calls for departures of Brodhead, Steel

By Ray Gronberg : The Herald-Sun

One of Duke University's most prominent alumni and former athletes has publicly called for the resignation or dismissal of the school's president and trustees chairman as penalty for their handling of the Duke lacrosse case.

Former basketball star Jay Bilas published his criticism of Duke President Richard Brodhead and Board of Trustees Chairman Robert Steel via a letter to the school's alumni magazine.

From the beginning of the lacrosse case last year, "President Brodhead abdicated his responsibility as Duke's leader to stand up for fairness and truth," wrote Bilas, who's now a commentator for EPSN and a private-practice attorney in Charlotte. "Instead, President Brodhead chose the path of political expediency."

Bilas faulted Brodhead for not speaking out last year against the procedural irregularities, lies and due-process violations that occurred as now-disgraced former District Attorney Mike Nifong was prosecuting three lacrosse players on false charges of rape.

If accountability required former lacrosse coach Mike Pressler to lose his job, it should also apply to the president, and to Steel and any other trustees "that acted in lockstep" with Brodhead, Bilas said.

The letter, though not printed in the latest issue of Duke Magazine, did appear on the publication's Web site this week.

In an interview with The Herald-Sun, Bilas said he submitted the letter to the magazine June 10, a few weeks after relaying his views to Steel. He also warned Brodhead about it during a one-on-one meeting with the president Aug. 27.

"This is not something within the Duke community that came out of the blue," Bilas said, referring to his submission. "Based on the response I've gotten, I understand that I'm not alone."

Asked Friday about the letter, Brodhead and Steel confirmed having talked to Bilas about his views and said they appreciated the advance warning. Neither, however, showed any sign of agreeing with it.

"This was a complicated and difficult situation, and if there's a variety of opinion, no one could be surprised by that," Brodhead said.

Steel echoed that. Criticizing the administration is "his prerogative, and it's always good to get the input from the people, especially those who don't agree with you so that you can have their perspective," the chairman said.

Bilas was one of the key players on Duke's first Final Four team during the tenure of coach Mike Krzyzewski, and an assistant coach on its back-to-back national champions in 1991 and 1992.

He remains close to the athletic department and said he'd talked about his reactions to the lacrosse situation with people in the department.

Asked whether those people included Krzyzewski, Bilas said he and his former coach "have shared some different things but have not discussed the issues at length," thanks in part to Krzyzewski's summer obligations to USA Basketball.

Brodhead said he didn't think the letter implies a rift between the athletic department and the administration.

"Families go through periods where people have different opinions about things," he said. "I'd have to say I believe the degree of loyalty to this university remains very, very high. I certainly think we've been working extremely closely with athletics this year in a variety of positive ways."

Bilas' unhappiness with the administration traces back to Brodhead's earliest statements on the lacrosse case, which in his view implied the guilt of the players even as they included reminders that people should presume their innocence.

Duke officials have insisted that Brodhead couldn't and shouldn't have spoken out more forcefully early on, a point Bilas said the president repeated during their August meeting.

"The president feels and told me personally that he believed any statement that he made would have provided the prosecutor with an opportunity to drop the charges, critics of the university the opportunity to suggest that somehow the university used undue influence in the process, and denied the student-athletes the opportunity to prove their innocence in court," Bilas said.

Bilas added that he disagreed with those arguments across the board. "Acting out of fear of an unreasonable response is not leadership," he said.

Bilas also thinks Duke should undertake a second review of the administration's handling of the case.

The first, conducted in the summer of 2006 by former Princeton University President William Bowen and Julius Chambers, criticized some of Brodhead's subordinates but essentially said the Duke president did the best he could with the information he had.

Another review should "hold people accountable for the actions they took" and search for "the lesions that can be learned about how to manage a similar crisis in the future," Bilas said.

Anonymous said...

You are right, O'Reilly is the face of modern conservatism. He and his cause are indeed, pointless. It is yet another sign of the end of this conservative era.

Debrah said...

Rather sterilized, vague coverage:


Duke discussion signals lingering vulnerability

By Ray Gronberg : The Herald-Sun

Even with the experience of the Duke lacrosse case close at hand, a Friday panel discussion at Duke University suggested that campus leaders, lawyers, coaches and other officials would have trouble handling a similar crisis.

The discussion -- part of a two-day symposium on the lacrosse case organized by Duke's law school -- indi-cated that the key problem remains balancing a university administration's need for information with the need to keep it out of the middle of police investigations.

Campus officials who start doing their own fact-finding and interviews in such situations risk exposing themselves to charges of obstructing justice, becoming witnesses against students and undermining students' constitutional rights, lawyers on the panel agreed.

"You don't want to be in a position here where you do any investigation at all because the minute something goes wrong, it's become an obstruction problem, it's become a cover-up," said Lawrence McMichael, a Duke-trained attorney who's now a Philadelphia-based litigator. "It's just not going to look good. I'd stay out of it, from an institutional standpoint."

McMichael's comments echoed those of two other panel members, Duke Law School Dean David Levi and Mecklenburg County District Attorney Peter Gilchrist.

But officials from Duke and two other area schools, Wake Forest University and UNC, agreed that information is a school's key need in a crisis. Without it, officials would have trouble answering questions from the media and parents, and deciding whether security concerns would require a student's removal from campus.

Wake Forest Director of Athletics Ron Wellman said his first impulse, on hearing about serious criminal allegations arising from a team party like the one that triggered the lacrosse case, would be to have his staff question all the students who'd attended the party.

His comments on that point followed and echoed those of Duke women's lacrosse coach Kerstin Kimel, who said in such a situation she'd likely call in her team's seniors and captains and try to find out what happened.

Student-affairs officials, meanwhile, would be trying to figure out whether a student accused of a crime should be suspended or at least held out of class, said Margaret Jablonski, UNC's vice chancellor for student affairs.

Levi and McMichael countered that university officials should look to the legal system for answers.

McMichael said decisions about limiting a student's presence on campus should follow negotiations with the student's lawyer. Levi added that if the courts consider someone who's been accused a continuing danger to the community, it will be obvious early in the legal process.

McMichael also suggested that officials looking for information should consult police, but Levi and former Duke Student Government President Elliott Wolf raised objections.

Levi said police would likely be reluctant to say much about their case, and Wolf said officials also have to factor in the possibility of police bias.

Wolf specifically warned against automatically suspending students accused of felonies, as that could give bad cops a motive to pursue bogus cases.

The panel discussion -- moderated by Court TV news anchor Jack Ford -- was the highlight of the symposium's first day. The symposium continues today. Scheduled are key figures in the lacrosse case, including Duke President Richard Brodhead and university spokesman John Burness.

Ford asked the 10 participants in Friday's panel to think through a hypothetical situation modeled on the lacrosse case. He said his questions to them were supposed to "make the agony of decision-making so intense [they could] only escape by thinking."

Duke's real-life response to the lacrosse case included meetings between senior members of the administration and key members of the lacrosse team.

Officials like Dean of Students Sue Wasiolek and Athletics Director Joe Alleva later wound up having to answer police questions, and the meetings also triggered continuing acrimony between officials, the players and their parents that's resulted in recent talk about the possibility of their suing the school.

Anonymous said...

I would expect that Jackson knows the lay of the land and has figured out that if the G88, Brodhead, the Herald-Sun, Irving Joyner, et. al. can get away with lying and dissembling, why can't he.

What ever happened to the day that people would take responsibility for their actions and apologize for their mistakes?

Anonymous said...

Pot Bangers & 9:38,

History is re-written when only all the facts are gathered. Interestingly enough is the Nifong example where he hid exculpatory evidence from the defense, eh?

What you write can be found in the fiction section as it is baseless in fact and doesn't stand the test of time.

Anonymous said...

This has to do with one of KC's previous posts this week, but today the Herald Sun ran an article on the Bilas letter. It is of course ironic that the H-S off all places would have an article entitled "Jay Bilas calls for departures of Brodhead, Steel," but once again we see see dissembling by both men. It is also curious to read the suggestion that Bilas's letter reflects the view of at least some people in the Athletics Department (I assume not Joe Alleva).

http://www.heraldsun.com/durham/4-885207.cfm?

Anonymous said...

DID TAYLOR AND JOHNSON DISSEMBLE?

I was wondering whether UPI mentions the fact that a significant percentage of white athletes and white students of privilege do not have the minimum credentials to gain legitimate entrance to Duke.

I suggest everyone read an article recently published in the Boston Globe by Jonathan Schmidt, "At the Elite Colleges--Dim White Kids."

The article specifically cites Duke, Notre Dame, and other elite schools. The author cited definitive data collected from former employees of the College Board.

Does anyone here believe that many Duke profs disliked the lacrosse players for this reason? I do.

1 prof's opinion (no, I'm not employed by Duke or NCCU)

Anonymous said...

Thanks 11:03 for stating (restaing) a home truth. Athletics is a kind of affirmative action thatmany people don't like to recognize.

kcjohnson9 said...

It is worth noting that the lacrosse team had strong grades, and according to the Coleman Committee report, an academic record essentially interchangeable with the general Duke population.

Debrah said...

"I was wondering whether UPI mentions the fact that a significant percentage of white athletes and white students of privilege do not have the minimum credentials to gain legitimate entrance to Duke."

Pure falsehoods.....in real time, no less.

Let me put this to you in the most direct and indelicate way that I can.....for the sake of fora expediency.

One has only to listen to Reade, Collin, and David speak publicly to establish how very intelligent and academically accomplished they are.

Now, sit back and listen to a few athletes from NCCU or any other school around Durham and tell me what you hear.

Compare and contrast.

Sometimes it's best just to stop digging up old corpses.

Anonymous said...

11:03 No I do not believe the 88 dislike the Lax team because they are dim witted. The Duke Lax stats for graduation and grade point average totally kills that argument. I do not know, but doubt the stats are different from other Lax teams. Please link your Jonathan Schmidt article. "Former employees of the college board ..." has got to be a joke.

Anonymous said...

Jackson is a creep, and a crook. But among the villains of this whole sordid affair, he is an also-ran.

The final quote you give, declaring the "something happened" merely because "Nifong was prompted to say, 'This case is not going away’", might be way more forgivable if Jackson was ordinarily in the habit of accepting whatever a District Attorney says. Ha!

And "We know that the two women were abused" makes no sense, unless Jackson considers it "abuse" to employ them in their chosen profession. This shows more respect than the way Jackson treated his own concubines and baby-mamas.

All of that being said, I'm going to stick my neck out enough to say that Jackson's role in this case has been exaggerated in many people's minds. People have posted here about how Jackson and Sharpton came to Durham to jack-up the furor, neither of which ever happened. Neither huckster was that interested, and "Tawana" Sharpton had especially good reason to be wary.

What Jackson said was wrong, and it was wrong for him to not admit later that he made a mistake (by believing Nifong, or pretending to, while it was politically expedient to do so).

Indeed, while it's infuriating that Jackson offered financial reward to the accuser even if she lied, the most interesting part is that he conceded, from the start, that she might be a liar -- which is more than the 88 ever did.

But I hardly think this was one of his major campaigns. I think it's more accurate that, when the media were all on fire about this alleged "horrific crime," Jackson couldn't resist giving an interview or two. It's what he does. But he had no real enthusiasm for it (whether due to mental reservations, or the lack of any obvious money-angle for him), and he is hardly synonymous with the hoax.

Ditto Big Al.

I point this out only because this was a huge race-based lie perpetrated by persons OTHER THAN the "usual suspects" -- a largely home-grown hoax, that didn't need the usual hoaxers' help in order to take off big-time. That's one reason that it's interesting.

Anonymous said...

11:03
"Does anyone here believe that many Duke profs disliked the lacrosse players for this reason? I do."

Professor,

Would you like to communicate professors' opinions on other students who matriculate on another lessor admission standard such as "affirmative action" vis-a-vis student athletes?

Is there a double standard to your truth? Why not?

Also, why would Brown accept Mr. Seligman(sp)? If he graduates with a Brown Degree, should that degree be awarded with an asterik because he is viewed by professors as a white privelaged athlete? Should the same standard be held for affirmative action students?

Can you explain why garduation rates for African Americans @ Michigan law School have risen in recent years?

Anonymous said...

I suggest everyone read an article recently published in the Boston Globe by Jonathan Schmidt, "At the Elite Colleges--Dim White Kids."

Does anything exist in your universe other than race? No, I didn't think so.

Anonymous said...

To anon. 11:03: There is no question that Duke athletes have admission preferences (as they do at many other schools), but that has little or nothing to do with race. From what I have read, the basketball team, for example, has an average SAT (on the old, two-test scale) of 1000, which is far lower than the average for all students. For comparison purposes, I recall that Stanford and Notre Dame had about the highest among elite schools with strong basketball programs, but that was about 1100.

Duke does have developmental admissions, which make up about 1% of all admits. These are very wealthy students, and the university establishes a relationship with the family (usually through someone's recommendation) before the student graduates from high school. Once the student is enrolled, Duke basically contacts the family and says we admitted your child with an 1150 on the SATs, and we need something in return. This is not a shakedown as the family already knows how all this works.

This is a controversial practice, but at least the university can use this money for scholarships for needy students. Nevertheless, I don't think anyone is proud of it and I would expect that most people hope the practice goes away.

Duke is not the only school that does this, according to an article in the Wall Street Journal a couple of years ago, but I don't remember the names of the other schools.

There is no question that many universities are only interested in athletes as athletes and not as students, as you can see from published graduation requirements. Duke does have a good record in this area.

Anonymous said...

If Jackson and the Group of 88 had said:

…We should have waited for creditable evidence to be developed before we took a stand. We apologize to the innocent lacrosse team and vow in the future to wait for creditable evidence to appear before we take any future stances….

Personally if they issued such a statement I probably would have “moved-on” and not bothered following the case as closely.

Instead theses guys seem intent on re-writing history so they don’t look as bad. Then KC gets to point out the difference between what they said at the time and what they are currently saying about past events and they look petty.

Anonymous said...

11:03, lacrosse team had 3.4 GPA. One of the accused is now at Brown. Are you suggesting that "many Duke profs" treat all athletes this way? All teams? Black and white athletes? Female athletes?

What about students admitted for legacy, diversity, etc? Exactly, how many students are "disliked" by these "many profs" based on these characteristics?

Anonymous said...

to 1 prof at 11:03:

Can you provide a link to that article? Without having yet read it, I suspect that evidence for the headline is likely to refer to basketball and football players, not competitors in non-revenue sports, such as track or, um, lacrosse, which do not provide full scholarships to all members of the respective teams. At that, I question whether the stats provided by "former employees of the College Board" include a breakdown as to the ethnic background of the athletes who produced the test scores. To take it one step further, I would like to see a comparison between scores from admitted athletes and non-athlete students who were admitted in pursuit of Affirmative Action goals.

In short, prof, you have demonstrated your prejudice against athletes very well, but your argument remains unproven.

Anonymous said...

Interesting, 11:03. I found the article you cited on Google:

http://www.commondreams.org/archive/2007/09/27/4185/

It does not focus on admissions for athletics. The article does not mention athletes. It cites admissions for students "with connections" -- primarily children of alumni and donors. Some members of athletic teams may fall into that category; many do not. If you object to admissions on those grounds, take your battle somewhere else. It has nothing to do with the facts of the Duke lacrosse team. You have been careless or dishonest by presenting the article in this context to support your own prejudices.

(Note: The URL for the article can be copied and pasted in the address window of your browser. If someone else wishes to provide a clickable link, thank you.)

Anonymous said...

"What about the girls' careers?"

What about them, indeed?

Kim Roberts/Pittman had a career as a payroll specialist. Until she chose to embezzle $25,000 from her employer. She can't even point to any pressing financial need to caused her to embezzle; it was simply her own choice.

Mangum could have had a career in the Navy. However, her own choice to have an extra-marital affair with another sailor led to the end of that.

It bothers me that even now people are crying out "You can't look down on them for being strippers!" Well, guess what? I don't. I look down on them for having made such bad choices that they rendered themselves unfit for any job but stripper (and in Mangum's case, hooker.)

Anonymous said...

12:04 --

Thank you for the link.

here

Anonymous said...

12:04:
"Interesting, 11:03. I found the article you cited on Google:

http://www.commondreams.org/archive/2007/09/27/4185/

"It does not focus on admissions for athletics. The article does not mention athletes."

-----------

DID 11:03 A.M. DISSEMBLE ???????

Anonymous said...

12:04 --

A clickable link is here.

If you want to link to an article, you need to enter:
* the opening tag,
* the text that the link will appear on, and
* the closing tag.

The opening tag is "<a href=" (note the angle bracket at the beginning), followed by the URL enclosed in double quotes, followed by a single ">". Thus a link to CNN would be <a href="http://www.cnn.com"> . Watch out for extra spaces; if they slip inside the quotes, the link won't work.

The text that the link will appear upon is, of course, your choice.

The closing tag is simply <a> .

Thank you for linking to the article. I have to point out one minor inaccuracy in your description: the article does mention athletes, in exactly one sentence. I'm reproducing that sentence and the next:

A sizable number are recruited athletes who, research has shown, will perform worse on average than other students with similar academic profiles, mainly as a result of the demands their coaches will place on them.

A larger share, however, are students who gained admission through their ties to people the institution wanted to keep happy, with alumni, donors, faculty members, administrators, and politicians topping the list.


So, what 11:03 did was basically to provide a one-sentence generalization about recruited athletes (which is of course a different category from "athletes" or the specific category of "white athletes" that 11:03 claimed he was speaking of) and then try to apply that generalization to the lacrosse team.

Imagine the furor that 11:03 would have raised in any civilized circle if he had stated some statistics about black students performing worse on average than white students and then followed it up with "Does anyone here believe that many [some college] profs disliked the [some group of black students] for this reason? I do."

Anonymous said...

The LAX team's cummulative GPA has been cited as 3.48. What were the majors? Were they the hard science/social science majors so many posters here admire? Or were they the softer subjects that so many have distained?

W. R. Chambers said...

Rev. Jackson and Mr. O'Reilly certainly seemed to enjoy each other's company. Rev. Jackson would be a fine professor at Duke in the gender and race department. His real world experiece would nicely complement the more theoretical approach of the professors represented by the Gang of 88. His failure to apologize is evidence of a sincere belief in the world view that qualifies one to be a member of the race and gender department at Duke. Mr. O'Reilly doesn't have the gravitas necessary to be a Duke professor. (A certain misundertanding with a female co-worker would likely be brought up again by opponents who would stop at nothing to discredit Mr. O'Reilly) But, a guest lecturer has a much lower profie. As a guest lecturerer, he could introduce the budding faithful to the techniques of the no-spin zone, important tools for evangelists of the truth. If Mr. O'Reilly had advised the Gang of 88, it is unlikey that Duke's reputation would have been damaged in the same way. Perhaps he could help burnish Duke's reputation by inviting a member of the Gang of 88 on his show for the same kind of helpful interview he conducted with the Rev. Jackson. There is more the Duke public relations department could do to help clarify what Duke stands for. Perhaps arranging an interview by Mr. O'Reilly of President Broadhead would clear the air and allow Duke to get past the nagging criticisms.

Anonymous said...

to 12:44 --

Thank you for correcting my oversight on the sentence about recruited athletes, and thanks for explaining how to do the clickable link. I have printed that out for future reference.

It takes a village to make my responses read the way they should....

Anonymous said...

To the alleged professor at 11:03 AM who can't link, here is the money quote:


White students who failed to make the grade on all counts were nearly twice as prevalent on such campuses as black and Hispanic students who received an admissions break based on their ethnicity or race.


It seems you also cannot do math.

Guess how prevalent whites are in the general population compared to either blacks or hispanics.

I knew you could.

Anonymous said...

The exchange between OReilly and Jackson is stupid beyond belief. No one is listening and both are talking heads. OReilly is only interested in getting folk to agree he is not racist. I do not think he is. i do not know what Jackson was doing.

Unknown said...

To Anonymous 11:03:

Thank you learned budge-doctor for diverting us from contemplating the sad spectacle of Jesse Jackson. I would think you'd been slapped down enough now by the introduction of a few facts, so I won't pile on.

But is that you popping up out of your hole at 12:53 to whine about the majors of the LAX team? Maybe you've got something there. I'll bet not one of them could have successfully majored in Women's Studies or African-American Studies. Better to send dumb white boys like that over to the Economics Department where they don't "dislike" them.

Anonymous said...

12:53,
I believe that a prior post of KCs mentioned that over 33% of the LAX were economics majors. I know that Dave Evans graduated with a degree in Economics.
Perhaps the 'goduke.com' website lists the LAX majors.

Tall T

Anonymous said...

O'Reiily interviewing Jackson is the intellectual equivalent of one of the Three Stooges interviewing another -- the fact that people pay any attention to either of them says a lot about the IQ of the average American TV viewer.

Anonymous said...

oreilly is a populist

simple

he will bend as a result

Anonymous said...

Jackson is Jackson.

In 30 years, people will be as embarrassed to say they supported him as White Southerners today are about Maddox, Wallace (the 60s version), etc.

I would also go back to The New Republics articles from 10-15 years ago about this guy.

Anonymous said...

Why does anyone give air time to Jackson? I'd rather see Paris Hilton!

mac said...

Looks like O'Reilly had a Tom Snyder moment.

Some of us oldies remember when Snyder attempted to interview Charles Manson: Snyder was so eager to "get" Manson, that Manson made him look silly, even calling him "Mr. Prosecutor."

O'Reilly's wife must have put too much soy in his Wheaties. Otherwise, I like the guy.

But Jackson is a liar and a racist and an anti-Semite: I would compare him - (as an advisor to President Clinton) - to Jonadab, a buddy of Amnon, while he would see himself as Nathan, advising David. There's only one reality here, and Jasckon doesn't get it.

Anonymous said...

11:03- How are things at Hamburger University?