SwiftVets.com

[fortdixlover]

Yale professor Jim Sleeper (a card-carrying far leftist) smears John O'Neill in the New York Times in the last paragraph of article "Allan Bloom and the Conservative Mind"

Horowitz and other conservative activists know very well that Bloom didn't reduce what he saw as liberal education's crisis to a contest of left versus right: ''I don't want the universities to be conservative,'' Horowitz himself protested recently to The Chronicle of Higher Education. ''I want them to be academic, scholarly.'' The magazine reported, however, that his small board of directors included John O'Neill of Swift Boat Veterans for Truth. That can't be kind of the truth Allan Bloom had in mind.

Horowitz pointed this out at in his response to the NYT (which will likely not publish it) at his blog, second entry:

A cranky ideologue:

Jim Sleeper was once an interesting social commentator, but of late he has increasingly become a cranky and unreliable political ideologue. In his article “Allan Bloom and The Conservative Mind,” (NYT September 4, 2005) Sleeper singles out Roger Kimball and myself as representatives of the latter. Sleeper claims that my Academic Bill of Rights “would force professors to teach scholarly work opposed to their own.” This statement is totally false, as Sleeper knows because I have written literally tens of thousands of words on the subject, while the Bill itself is posted at www.studentsforacademicfreedom.org. The legislation based on my bill is not statutory and cannot be reasonably interpreted as forcing anyone to do anything. Moreover, the text of the Bill of Rights says (in so many words) that “teachers are and should be free to pursue their own findings and perspectives,” but suggests that, “they should consider and make their students aware of other viewpoints.” Who can argue with that? And of course this applies to conservatives teaching free market economics.

In an ad hominem smear, characteristic of the new Jim Sleeper, the article closes by insinuating that because Swift Boat veteran John O’Neill is on my board I can’t have much regard for the truth. John O’Neill has more integrity in his big toe than is to be found in Jim Sleeper’s entire writing body.

Sleeper can be reached at james.sleeper@yale.edu . Why not share your thoughts with the esteemed professor.

-- FDL
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"Millions For Defense, Not One Cent For Tribute" - Thomas Jefferson on paying ransom to Muslim corsairs (pirates).