Since yesterday’s abuse of power thread was so much fun, here is an update from Jeff.
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Come for the politics, stay for the snark.
Teach a man to fish, and he’ll sit in a boat all day drinking beer.
The next time the wall street journal editorial board speaks the truth will be the first.
Impressively dumb. Congratulations.
The arc of the moral universe doesn’t bend itself. it’s up to us.
They are lying in pursuit of an agenda.
Peak wingnut was a lie.
It’s always darkest before the other shoe drops.
I am pretty sure Katy Tur wasn’t always such a bootlicking sycophant.
Meanwhile over at truth Social, the former president is busy confessing to crimes.
Putin dreamed of ending NATO, and now it’s Finnish-ed.
Wow, you are pre-disappointed. How surprising.
When you’re a Republican, they let you do it.
Let’s delete this post and never speak of this again.
If you still can’t see these things even now, maybe politics isn’t your forte and you should stop writing about it.
FFS people, this was a good thing. take the win.
Fight for a just cause, love your fellow man, live a good life.
Motown is Joe-Town!
One lie, alone, tears the fabric of reality.
Something needs to be done about our bogus SCOTUS.
Following reporting rules is only for the little people, apparently.
“Jesus paying for the sins of everyone is an insult to those who paid for their own sins.”
We won’t go back.
The fight for our country is always worth it. ~Kamala Harris
🎶 Those boots were made for mockin’ 🎵
You are here: Home / More on Hettle/Deignan
Otto Man
Once again, Jeff G. elevates the discourse.
I’m sorry, but I don’t find it surprising or outrageous that university professors largely favored Kerry over Bush. Should we be surprised that biologists overwhelmingly sided against the guy who supports creationism and opposes stem cell research? Or that economists generally didn’t think highly of the president’s borrow-and-spend approach to the economy? Or that English professors didn’t want to vote for a president for whom English is apparently a third language? Or that French professors instead liked the guy who could converse in their language? Or that academics in general didn’t warm up to the general anti-intellectualism of this administration?
You can look at that evidence in two ways — either all the professors are engaged in a vast left-wing conspiracy, or all the experts in these various fields agree that George W. Bush is still no better than a C student.
Otto Man
Forgot to include a block quote in there to Jeff G’s links about academics’ political biases. Let’s all just pretend it’s there.
p.lukasiak
Jeffy demonstrates that he didn’t learn anything from yesterday’s take-down of his assinine accusations.
So here’s the condensed version.
The professor in question had no “position” to abuse, no “authority” to abuse, no “power” to abuse, no nothing to abuse.
He didn’t teach at Deignan’s school. He didn’t teach in Deignan’s field. He’s just some guy who happens to be a college professor who thought Deignan was acting like a jerk, and alerted Deignan’s advisor to that fact.
Deignan’s advisor had the position, authority, and power to look into the allegations and see if they were substantive, credible, and relevant — and he could have ignored the allegations entirely.
Deignan was acting like a troll, and got called on it. And its quite possible to be substantive and yet “troll” at the same time — apparently, despite having a blog for god knows how long, Jeffy still hasn’t bit hit over the head with the clue stick concerning that fact.
Defense Guy
So mark p.lukasiak down as pro net-kopping. Hettle went too far in his actions, there was no need to get anyone outside of the discussion involved.
John S.
As so of course the only reasonable response was for Jeff and Paul to go too far in their actions and involve everyone outside of the discussion involved.
Does this qualify as “what’s good for the goose is good for gander” or is it more “two wrongs make a right”?
p.lukasiak
So mark p.lukasiak down as pro net-kopping.
no, put me down as anti-“making a big fucking deal when net-kopping occurs when a liberal does it”
nyrev
Why, exactly, are we supposed to care about this?
Yes, it was stupid of Deignan to start emailing college professors in other states in order to criticize their politics. And it was stupid and unprofessional of Hettle to tattle to Deignan’s advisors. And Deignan’s threatened lawsuit is stupid, unprofessional, and much more likely to hurt him professionally than a email from a third-rate history professor would have. But while neither Hettle nor Deignan have behaved particularly well, Hettle was indisputably the bigger asshole right up until Deignan decided to start harrassing the site proprietor at Bitch, PhD for what Hettle did. It’s a strictly personal game of who’s got the biggest lawyer now. Hettle’s actions have no more to do with “a trend in the behavior of liberal professors” than Deignan’s have to do with “a trend in the behavior of mech eng students.”
Defense Guy
I’m sorry, did either Jeff or Paul make calls to anyones employer? It is one thing to have an opinion on something, and write about it on the web, and another thing to actually contact a persons ’employer’.
John S.
Not at all. Jeff merely posted a way for everyone to contact the professor’s employer in order to get him fired, and Paul is threatening to bring a couple of lawsuits against his oppressors to threaten their livelihood, as well.
So I guess you are correct on this one.
Defense Guy
He posted them so that people could voice their displeasure at the dickweed prof’s actions. It is a reaction to the original action taken by the aforementioned dickweed prof.
Paul is threatening to bring a couple of lawsuits against his oppressors to threaten their livelihood, as well.
Defense Guy
Hit submit too soon.
Anyway, I disagree with Paul’s attempt to sue BitchPhD, but am less upset by the attempted legal action against Hettle.
Jane Finch
Talk about a dick-swinging echo chamber…Jeff uses this as yet another example of liberal bias/totalitarianism/you name it. Everyone chooses up sides based on their love/hate of said so-called liberal bias/totalitarianism.
Who gives a damn? They’re a bunch of whiny babies….there’s no difference between calling someone’s school to bitch about your little internet flame war, posturing publicly all over your blog about lawyers and huffing and puffing about lawsuits, and posting someone’s number so all your keyboarding warriors…err, readers can call and bitch about some little internet flame war they weren’t even involved in.
Cripes, no wonder I left academe.
John S.
Well, I suppose it is wrong for Hettle to contact Paul’s employer, but is perfectly acceptable for Jeff to urge the entire blogosphere to contact Hettle’s employer – so long as he doesn’t contact the employer himself.
Makes perfect sense to me.
As far as I’m concerned, Hettle is a dickweed (to use your parlance) and Paul is a dickweed-in-training. Once he gets his PhD, his status will become official.
Don
I’d take Jeff’s I’m-not-tarring-all-libruhls-with-the-same-brush claim a lot more serious if it wasn’t followed up with terms like “professoriat.”
John Cole
John S.-
Since this is proving difficult for you to hash out, it is wholy inappropriate for a tenured faculty member to attempt to take the contents of an online back and forth on political issues and attempt to use it to threaten or damage the academic career of a student at another university.
It is, however, wholly appropriate for people, when they learn of these actions by the professor, to bring them to the attention of that professor’s employers.
One is wrong, the other is not.
Having said that, I disagree with the lawsuit against Bitch PHD.
Shygetz
Wow…two people come out smelling like shit, and John and Jeff (and DG) side with the one filing the frivilkous lawsuits. I never would have guessed it.
There is a reason for blogging anonymously–if you don’t want to be held accountable for your writings, then write anonymously. That’s why I write anonymously–my employer would not appreciate being affiliated with my comments. If you write openly, then you gotta take the heat for your writings. Hettle will probably get some heat from Jeff’s posting of his contact information (which I think was bush-league, but within Jeff’s rights). Paul may get some heat from his advisor, but probably not (my advisor would have poked a little fun at me, that’s it). If Paul gets in trouble from his advisor, then it seems like he should be pissed at his advisor, not at someone else who brought public comments to his advisors attention. Like what Jeff is doing, I think Hettle is being very bush-league, but within his rights.
The lawsuits are dumb, and kill any sympathy I would have had for Paul. Before the lawsuits, I would think that Paul was the only victim here. Now, I think he’s the biggest asshat. Ooo, maybe he will track down my identity and sue me! Be still my beating heart.
“Shygetz made a factual statement when he wrote that I am ‘the biggest asshat.’ Previously, on Sept. 9th, 2005, he wrote that President George W. Bush was ‘the world’s biggest asshat.’ As such, he is clearly libeling me in citing me as ‘the biggest asshat,’ and I demand an apology or one million dollars. I have an excellent lawyer that does this kind of thing all the time, so I suggest you just pay me, bitches!”
John S.
John Cole-
Since this is proving difficult for you to understand how a lefty like me thinks (I am not one of your students, so don’t patronize me as you would them), let me spell it out for you VERY CLEARLY.
1. I do not agree with Hettle’s actions. He acted in a thoroughly unprofessional manner.
2. I do not agree with Jeff’s actions. He had no business being involved in this matter whatsoever.
3. I do not agree with Paul’s actions. He is clearly no saint (depsite efforts to paint him as thus), and he has overreacted with his threatened legal activity.
I understand you want to defend your pal Jeff (as you have done on so many other occasions), but I think for him to make a call for action that is heavily biased (liberal, liberal!) and only represents one side of the story is WRONG. That of course is my opinion, and I am just as entitled to it as you are to yours.
Having said that, I think it would have been better for Paul to hash out his differences in Hettle without the intrusion of the navel-gazing blogosphere.
Shygetz
John Cole–Do you have any personal knowledge of Hettle’s actions? Did he call you? E-mail you? Write you a letter?
Then what standing do you have to bitch? You only know part of the story, as does Jeff, and yet you have no problem calling a Hettle’s employer, nor with inciting others to do the same with no more information. If someone wants to complain, it should be Paul’s advisor, who actually knows what Hettle said when he called, and whether or not it was appropriate. You don’t know, so you should keep your comments away from his employer. It’s as bush-league as what Hettle did in the first place.
John S.
My thoughts exactly. But of course, you only say that because you’re one of those lefties, right?
John Cole
John S.- Yeah. Paul had it coming. Uppity bitch shouldn’t have worn that short dress- and what was he doing being drunk and obnoxious like that? He got what he deserved and he ‘clearly is no saint.’
I have said I disagree with his lawsuit, and he may or may not be a petulant ass, but the only one who has done anything ‘wrong’ here is the obnoxious professor.
John Cole
Oh, so now we are disputing whether Hettle even called his advisor?
aop
This is the most boring, trivial topic ever. The only reason Jeff bothered with it in the first place was it struck some kind of “symptomatic of the ills of liberal academia” chord in him. Can’t we all just agree that both of these guys are total toolbags?
John S.
John Cole-
I understand your viewpoint, though I still disagree with you in principle. I do agree that the only real initial wrongdoing was committed by Hettle, but it quickly degenerated from that point forward. I just don’t appreciate the tone you take sometimes with people you disagree with – as if we are all children that can benefit from being graced with your adult wisdom.
I think opinions are like assholes – we all have them.
Shygetz
John Cole–Did I ever say that? No, of course not. But you have no idea what was said. If Hettle didn’t use his position as a tenured faculty member to try to influence Paul’s advisor, then he is just a private citizen trying to get someone in trouble for non-anonymous online activity–bush league, but has nothing to do with his employer. If he did, then Paul’s advisor knows it, and he knows if this is the kind of thing that should have been brought to his attention, and he knows if Hettle was wrong or right, and how wrong or right he was. He is the only one in a position informed enough to determine if Hettle was out of line. All you know is that someone claiming to be Hettle claimed to call Paul’s advisor. You don’t know what was said. You don’t know what Paul’s advisor thinks about it. All you know is that someone is claiming that some professor is getting uppity and liberal, and we can’t have that.
t. jasper parnell
I am not sure I follow Mr. Cole’s confident assertion that Prof. Wally’s comment is out of line. It seems to me that Prof. Wally thinks that “Paul” misbehaved and he complained about it. What is it about being a tenured professor that precludes, either as a matter of law or as a matter of professional ethics, complaining about behavior that one finds objectionable? The assumption here seems to be that Prof. Wally phoned “Paul’s” advisor and said, by the way there is a conservative in you student body and his name is Paul get rid of him. Not even Prof. Wally could be clueless enough to do such a thing. If he did, well then I agree it was wrong. If, however, he did not then there is nothing wrong with what Prof. Wally did in the abstract of the concrete case.
Mr. Goldstein made a comment on the earlier thread that was wholly beside the point but that offers an insight into what Mr. Cole and he seem to think occurred. Mr. Goldstein referenced letters of recommendation and seemed to imply a similarity between Prof. Wally’s phone/email missive and the damage that could be done by a letter of recommendation. This is an endlessly bad analogy. Mr. Goldstein also hinted at the existence of a code for letter of recommendation writing, which in this context suggest a way of “outing” conservatives – Paul would bring a refreshing Burkean sensibility to your faculty — without stating it directly. Obviously, a letter of complaint, no matter who wrote it, is not a letter of recomendation. However, Mr. Goldstein and Mr. Cole would seem to think that this case is similar to the Kehr case or perhaps David Abraham. This would seem to be an overstatement and not supported by the facts of the matter.
Cyrus
There’s truthful, there’s legal, there’s tactful, there’s political, there’s ethical, and there’s another variable of personal conduct that’s harder to define, at least with such precise terms – honorable? mature? Manly, even, in an old-fashioned sense without the strictly positive value judgement? Honorable, I guess.
As far as I can tell from reading both Deignan and Bitch, Ph. D.’s accounts of events, Dr. Hettle’s actions were not the last. (Whining to the guy’s boss about an online conversation?) They also were not tactful or political. But their truthfulness also seems pretty clear – unless I missed something in the long updates and quotes on his blog, Deignan doesn’t dispute the facts of anything Hettle claims. And they’re only illegal if Hettle knew his claims were false and made them anyway (as I understand libel law), so I think he’s safe on that. And ethical? Hettle got an e-mail from someone who seems like a complete asshole, so he informed the people most likely to be hurt by said asshole of his assholery. Probably meddling closemindedness, but there’s a slight chance it was downright charitable. So that’s two for Hettle, three against, and one in contention.
(No attempt to weight the value of the points has been made. For the record, no, I think the chance that it was an act of charity does not outweigh the fact that he brought a guy’s boss into an online discussion.)
An exercise to judge Deignan’s conduct in each of the above categories is left to the reader.
Bill from INDC
Does this qualify as “what’s good for the goose is good for gander” or is it more “two wrongs make a right”?
Actually, yeah.
Taking a blogosphere political disagreement – specifically one that does not involve base profanity, threats or racism – offline to try and threaten someone’s academic or professional career is so far out of line, I’m amazed at how many of you are willing to excuse or at least minimize it.
It’s really/i> screwed up. And a response that involves a lawsuit to the initial malicious party, or – gasp – giving the aggressor a taste of his own medicine, is not particularly stupid or disproportionate.
I eagerly wait some yahoo to directly threaten the livelihood of some of the apologists on this thread for a political view expressed on a blog, and then see what they feel is a “proportionate” response.
Defense Guy
No, the assumption is that Wally did not like either the tone or the comment of Paul’s posts and/or emails, which as far as I can tell all have to do with a conversation on Alito and his judicial decisions, and decided to contact Paul’s ‘boss’ about it. Even if it wasn’t bad nettiquette to do such a thing, it is made even more ridiculous when you read Wally’s comments and the comments of some of the others in response to Paul.
I can tell you the comment threads here would probably have Wally crying like the apparent schoolchild he is and would apparently force him to call all our mothers.
John S.
I’m amazed how many people keep coming in here and making this preposterous claim when I have yet to see many (if any) people declare that the professor did nothing wrong or attempt to minimize his wrongdoing.
Actually, no. Two wrongs don’t make a right. If your mother didn’t teach you that, we will have the good professor call her to berate your behavior – and her feeble attempt at raising you.
Facetiously yours…
Otto Man
True. But then Paul would probably stalk us all and expose our real identities. A real couple of grown ups.
Henry Kissinger had one thing right — academics fight so hard because the stakes are so small.
t. jasper parnell
Defense Guy,
Mr Cole wrote that “it is wholy inappropriate for a tenured faculty member to attempt to take the contents of an online back and forth on political issues and attempt to use it to threaten or damage the academic career of a student at another university.”
This assumes that Prof. Wally’s complaint was or is about political content. As I understand it Prof Wally was complaining about verbal behavior and related antics that he found out of bounds. This does not suggest a commitment to derailing the young man’s career on the basis of his political beliefs. This seems to place an undue restraint on professorial speech by refusing professor the ability to complain about incivility in public, or semi-public, forums.
I agree that Prof. Wally seems thinned skinned and possibly overly self-regarding, but fail to see how this event or these events rises to the level of abuse of power. I have yet to read anything by anyone that shows, suggests, or indicates that it is. Yet Mr. Cole continues to insist that it is. I can only assume that he thinks that Prof. Wally’s worry are a Trojan Horse for a desire for a political purge.
washerdreyer
Cyrus’s comment strikes me as right on.
BJ God Warrior
Henry Kissinger had one thing right—academics fight so hard because the stakes are so small.
I think President Wilson originally made that comment.
Otto Man
I haven’t gotten a response to my original point, that academic opposition to Bush seems to be a sign of principled opposition and not a left-wing conspiracy:
This was directed to Jeff G., but he hasn’t been by. Any takers?
I find it odd that Republicans routinely point to the overwhelming support given to them by the military (in the past at least) as evidence that the GOP is stronger on military issues and foreign affairs, and at the same time point to the overwhelming support given by academics to the Democrats as evidence of some evil conspiracy. Either both are conspiracies, or both are evidence of people with first-hand expertise making informed decisions.
Otto Man
Most cites credit Kissinger — as here — but I wouldn’t put quote-theft past him.
Steve S
I see Jeff G completely ignored my point asking about the deleted comments and what those meant to the discussion.
I just find it hilarious that he’s continuing to defend his faux outrage, while at the same time admitting he is not fully informed as to the full context of the discussion.
No, John. They’re both wrong. If you can’t see that it’s because you have your partisan blinders on.
Jeff G
No, Steve. Didn’t ignore your point. Just have other things to do sometimes. Commenter Hans Gruber at my site answers you, though:
Jeff G
One happens naturally (military support of GOP, thanks to a muscular foreign policy), the other IS a self-selecting echo chamber. Also military enrollment is open to just about anyone; faculty hires are highly competitive and are decided upon by the department members.
I don’t say the liberal tilt to the humanities is the product of it’s a conspiracy, necessary, because I don’t think there is some grand plan behind it. But it is an attempt to take and hold power over departments, and it often takes a less obvious form than selecting nominees based on actual political affiliation. In English Depts (my field), for instance, candidates were queried on their theoretical positions. And from those positions, a person’s politics can be easily discerned. It could be that the politics are incidental to the theory. But given that I’ve posited that the way one believes interpretation works drives the philosophy that drives political policy decisions, the circle is closed.
Sorry if you don’t believe it. But that’s the way it is.
John S.
Ah, the world according to
GarpJeff.Thanks for proving Otto’s point.
t. jasper parnell
Jeff G
An odd post. Theory proves political orientation? How? Is there some list of which interpretive theories match up with what specific politcal stance? Sausarians are libertarians while Foucauldians are anarcho-syndicalists and Greenblattian historicists are what? unreconstructed Marxists? Is it your contention that political stances are prior to interpretive theory acceptance or do interpretive theories create political stances? So I was a libertarian until I became a Greenblattian or I am a Greenblattian because I am a Marxist? Is this true of only lit profs? Or do the interpretive theories of some disciplines exist in a political orientation free zone?
Shygetz
I have applied for many faculty positions (in the natural sciences, granted, but they heavily lean left too). Not once during my application process did my political leanings come up. My advisors did not ask nor did they care what my political leanings are/were. In none of the instances where I was involved in the hiring process from the other side did the topic of politics come up, directly or obliquely. And yet natural scientists lean heavily left. Do they go through my e-mail to determine my orientation? Do they poll my friends, and then bribe them not to tell me?
Did it ever occur to you that maybe academics are more liberal because Dems are viewed as better on education, science, and the arts? Did it ever occur to you that there is a conservative echo chamber in the military, with opinion (and propaganda–see Armed Forces Radio) so heavily slanted towards Republicans that young people are influenced into Republican thinking? Did it occur to you that maybe English professors are interested in your theoretical position because (gasp) they want to know how you would teach English? Or must it be an attempt to shut out conservative politics? Maybe people with more liberal leanings are more heavily attracted to academia, as opposed to the private sector. Have you checked the political orientation of all qualified applicants, and tried to correlate that with the leanings of those who were hired? How much of “the way it is” comes from your specific biases, or are you immune to that?
Shygetz
Jeff G–So you and your commenters admit that you don’t have the whole story, but the reason for that must be because Bitch, PhD has evil motives, not because she has been threatened with a frivilous lawsuit and wants the whole thing to go away. Please. If this had happened the other way around (a conservative professor overreacting and phoning a liberal commenter’s advisor, and the liberal commenter threatening to sue) you would be all over tort reform. Since it happened this way, you ignore the frivilous lawsuit as irrelevant and are all over a phone call, encouraging your readers to phone in with very incomplete and biased information and harass the professor’s boss.
Party uber alles.
t. jasper parnell
Shygetz
I agree. The notion that there is some focus on political orientation and some kind of a occult system for ferreting out based on pointed questions in the academic hiring process is blather. Unprovable blather at that.
Jane Finch
John C., until you get both sides of the story, I’m not sure how much stock one should pput into where you decide what is right and what is wrong in this case. That’s one of the biggest barriers to the blogosphere becoming “real” media IMO….some guy gets ticked at some one-sided story and it gets picked up as if it was a full account in the first place.
Steve S
Ah ha! Proof by Absurdity.
You’re still set on giving this moonbat the benefit of the doubt, despite the overwhelming evidence from his own blog that he is in fact a moonbat. Quite an obsessive moonbat from what I can see.
Anyway, it’s not surprising that bitchphd deleted all emails from Paul, along with his offending comments and now would be unable to retrieve those. Most people don’t have the capability to retrieve such stuff once deleted.
You’re just being a sore loser, Jeff. Defending this guy when it’s clear that you don’t have the whole story is kind of pathetic, really.
Steve S
Dittos to what Jane Finch said.
[apologizes for being a dittohead]
Justin Slotman
Steve S, note that that quote was not from Jeff, but from one of his commentators.
Joel
Ah I see how it is. It’s all BitchPhd’s fault. The fact that she has not met the demands of some commentator at Protein Wisdom proves it. Well that settles that then. I guess by Jeff’s approvingly quoting that comment he now concurs. Sue away!
Justin Slotman
Especially since Dr. B already answered Hans:
Honestly–I do not understand the people still defending Deignan. Once you threaten to out an anonymous blogger and sue her for libel because she banned you for trolling–I mean, wow.
The Comish (sic)
Otto Man:
And how would this assessment explain their votes for Kerry — whose grades at Yale were slightly worse than Bush’s?
One of the conceits of the left is that the leftward tilt of university faculties somehow means their positions are more intellectual. They even go to ridiculous lengths to justify that position (for example, saying that French profs supported Kerry because he could speak to them in French … which of all the possible reasons to vote for a Presidential candidate, is just about the dumbest reason I’ve ever heard. By that same rationale, Spanish profs and other Spanish speakers should vote for Bush, right? And chubby people should have voted for Buchanan, and people with big ears should have voted for Nader. Give. Me. A. Break.).
On the other hand, Republicans would point out that CEOs and small business owners vote Republican as evidence that their economic policies work. And who are you going to believe — The professor that’s never actually run a business, or the guys actually running businesses?
Democrats would (in my opinion, correctly) point out that businesses vote Republican in part because Republicans craft their policies more towards the interests of businesses: tax breaks, regulation breaks, business incentives, etc. And by the same token, doesn’t it make sense that Dems garner the support of university profs in large part because the Dems cater more to the teachers’ unions: pay raises, funding for the arts, educational funding?
Of course university professors lean left! So do unions, the unemployed, and artists. But it’s not because university profs are so smart that they can see things we mere private sector folks can’t. It’s because they see things from their own, self interested perspective.
And do I need to debunk your apparent assumption that we should accept the opinions of college professors as fact because they’re smarter than the rest of us? Hopefully not.
But just in case there’s any doubt, let’s take your arguments one at a time:
First of all, Bush doesn’t oppose stem cell research. He was actually the first President to provide federal funding for stem cell research. He merely limits that funding to existing stem cell lines. It takes some serious contortions to twist Bush’s revolutionary funding of stem cell research into opposition to stem cells.
Second, Kerry is a Catholic. Any guesses on how he personally feels about creationism and intelligent design? And would it surprise you to hear that 47% of Kerry’s supporters were apparently creationist, and 56% favored teaching creationism alongside evolution?
Let’s start from the common-sense position – that even Kerry knew that his budget would rely on borrowing and spending. As for whether academics favored it, well, that depends on which academics you asked: 10 Nobel economists endorse Kerry; 368 economists, including 6 Nobel Lauereates and 6 former chairs on the President’s Council of Economic Advisers, oppose Kerry.
{sigh] You do realize that English profs don’t actually teach people to speak English, don’t you? “English” is shorthand for “literature” and “composition” and stuff. And what kind of an English instructor is only willing to speak with the most erudite and eloquent of students? Of course, even the snobbiest of instructors would be more likely to talk to Bush than Kerry, since Bush got slightly better grades in college.
And keep in mind that your “English as a first language only” requirement would mean that these English profs would be unwilling to lower themselves to the point of speaking to other mealy-mouthed idiots who don’t speak fluent English, like Tolstoy and Euripides and Khayyam and Confucious.
Yes, I know we’ve already addressed this. But I just wanted to point out the hilarity that underlies the implied assumption here – that French professors couldn’t converse with Bush in their language … I guess the French profs don’t speak English.
This is atalking point I hear repeated all over the left. But, as usual, you don’t give any examples. Any examples of anti-intellectualism you’d like to give? Because your examples so far don’t stand up.
Not to mention the fact that you’ve cherry picked the departments. Or do you have a reason to believe that the business departments wouldn’t like Bush because of his pro-business stances; or the environmental studies departments wouldn’t like to speak with Bush about the fact that he’s consistently raised environmental standards; or political science departments, who’d like to discuss how he won two elections against Gore and Kerry.
nyrev
Prospective employers are going to google Deignan and find gems like Remember, if I sue you, I sue your friend. It’s a twofer (like Bill and Hill) addressed to his “enemies” on his blog. Frankly, I feel sorry for the guy. Hettle’s antics (which are in no way defensible) have obviously sent him off the deep-end.
The Comish (sic)
Steve S:
And how would you characterize your defense of Bitch, PhD? Fully-informed or pathetic? How about hypocritical?
nyrev
Of course, you’re right. How dare someone ban somebody else from posting on her blog!
Steve S
Now what’d BitchPhd do? Ban the guy? Oh boo hoo.
I got banned from redstate.org for asking a quite serious intellectual question, but you don’t see me running and crying and screaming like a little child about it.
Otto Man
Comish, I don’t have time to wade into your lengthy arguments, so I’ll just focus on the part you think best supports your case:
Well, here’s some information from business professors. As this list and this list show, there are lots and lots of them who came out against Bush.
Your other claims are hysterical. Any proof to your claim that environmental studies departments — about as leftist as they come — are somehow in awe of the administration’s claims? Because articles like this and this and this all seem to suggest otherwise.
And political scientists would be in favor of Bush because he won two elections? Christ, is that a lame argument. I can’t believe you mocked my point about French departments to death and then dredged up this.
All in all, I was merely trying to offer some thoughts on why the overwhelming academic vote against Bush existed other than a vast left-wing conspiracy. Your argument seems to be that there really is no overwhelming academic vote against Bush. That goes even further than I tried in refuting Jeff G.’s assumptions, so, hey, thanks a lot for doing the heavy lifting!
Cyrus
Oh, no, Steve, you missed it. It was terrible. She didn’t just ban him, she accused him of spoofing his IP address – the worst defamation of character possible in these wired days! Now that crossed the line, that did, and poor Paul had no choice but to sue for liberal libel.
(Straight talk for the humor-impaired: spoofing an IP address is not a crime as far as I know, and even if he wasn’t doing it there are ways it might have looked like he was so even if wrong the accusation might have been sincere. So he’s not suing for being banned, but what he is doing is only the tiniest bit less bizarre.)
p.lukasiak
Shorter John Cole:
Tenured professors should not have the right to free speech.
really…that’s what its all about. The professor contacted a PhD candidate’s advisor — the professor in question was exercising his right to free speech. John considers this an abuse of his position as a tenured professor.
….well at least John is still opposed to torture, even if he is supporting the use of chemical weapons against civilians….
nyrev
Tenured professors should know better than to fuck with students’ careers just because they can. Just because he has the constitutional right to be a prick, doesn’t make him any less a prick. Even if the guy he decided to jerk around is also a prick, it still doesn’t make him less of a prick.
Frankly, I have no interest in getting involved in what has turned into a personal grudge match between two deeply unpleasant people. But if people want to take advantage of the university’s stalker-net to write to this professor’s superiors and point out what a prick he is, they’re only excercising their right to free speech.
Shygetz
Absolutely. And they are being pricks as well–possibly even bigger pricks than Hettle (although, unless they file a baseless lawsuit, not as big a prick as Deignan). They have less information than Hettle regarding the situation they are complaining about (in fact, they have no reliable information, just some stuff someone claims on the web), but they are still going to contact someone’s boss to get them in trouble. Why don’t we just stop the madness. If Deignan’s boss thinks that Hettle was out of line, it is his position to contact Hettle’s boss.
Kimmitt
p.lukasik — he’s got the right to free speech, but his behavior was unprofessional. We all have the Constitutional right not to be prosecuted by Federal authorities (and, thanks to the 14th Amendment State and local authorities) for unprofessional speech. Doesn’t have much to do with the current discussion, though.
Brett
I see one wrong and one right, not two wrongs.
John S.
I see skies of blue – and clouds of white – and I think to myself, “What a wonderful world.”