Liberals vs Christianity?

[Hohn]

I was referring to Ann Coulter's book, Treason. It is thoroughly documented. Then again, I guess you would have to READ IT to do something other than make ad hominem attacks.



From Steve M's link:

Remember that ten-year-old boy in St. Louis who Newt Gingrich claimed was put in detention for saying grace privately in a public school cafeteria?

Saying that "most people don't realize that it's illegal to pray" in public school, Gingrich commented on the case on Sunday, December 4, on "Meet the Press" on NBC. The case, as described, puzzled the moderator of THEIST_WATCH a great deal. You see, she went to high school in St. Louis, and felt that the possibility of finding an "anti-Christian" school in that city was very low indeed.



Well, it seems that, as with other so-called facts from conservative Christians, "it ain't necessarily so. "



The case Gingrich mentioned is a litigation battle between the Raines family and Waring Elementary, a 280-student magnet school in midtown St. Louis. The family's lawsuit is currently before a U. S. district court, and the family is being represented by the Rutherford Institute. The Rutherford Institute likes to portray itself as a group that defends "religious civil liberties. "



According to the Raines family, which describes itself as devout Pentecostals, when Raymond Raines was a fourth-grader when he had the habit of bowing his head to say a silent prayer before eating lunch. They claim that beginning in December 1992, several school officials, including the principal, an assistant principal, and librarian, removed Raymond from his seat and instructed him not to pray. When he refused to stop praying, they say, he was sent to the principal's office to eat, detained after lunch, or sent to the library (details from the family's attorney are not clear). His mother, Ellen Raines, complained and says she was told that praying was not allowed in school. When the school district refused to adopt a policy clarifying the rights of religious students, the family sued the school district and the principal, Cleveland Young, on April 18. The suit seeks monetary damages. The school district has filed a motion to dismiss and that action is pending. The child, Raymond, now attends a private religious school.



School officials and the school's attorney have declined to elaborate on exactly why the boy was punished because they are required by law to protect his right to privacy. Superintendent David Mahan responds, however, that the boy "was disciplined for some matters that were totally independent of silent praying. We did a very thorough investigation. We talked to teachers, administrators, and also to some students, and we could not find any evidence of the allegations that the parent and the student made. " Rev. Earl E. Nance Jr, a member and former chairman of the St. Louis school board, adds "I don't think the child was prevented from praying over lunch. I think the child was probably instructed in another matter and mistook that for understanding he couldn't pray over his lunch, and went home and told his parents. " Nance is the pastor of Greater Mount Carmel Missionary Baptist Church. He characterized the lawsuit as simply "frivolous. "



And one has to ask how probable it is that a school district with a minister on its board would really forbid silent, individual praying? Chalk another one up for the Christian Disinformation Troops.



The Rutherford institute claims that it is working on over 500 similar cases of abuse of religious liberties. One wonders if the claims in them are all so questionable.

I doubt the moderator of THEIST WATCH is exactly a disinterested party on this issue. Moreover, her "FEELING that the possibility of finding an "anti-Christian" school in that city was very low indeed" hardly constitutes PROOF. Unless, of course you are a liberal where feelings trump evidence every time.

Well, it seems that, as with other so-called facts from conservative Christians, "it ain't necessarily so. "

Yet another ad hominem attack, implying that anything a conservative Christian says is untrue.

The Rutherford Institute likes to portray itself as a group that defends "religious civil liberties. "

An editorial that neither furthers nor refutes ANY argument-- it's simply another statement of opinion.

And one has to ask how probable it is that a school district with a minister on its board would really forbid silent, individual praying? Chalk another one up for the Christian Disinformation Troops

Aside from yet another ad hominem attack at the end, this statement is worthless as well, because having a minister on the board does nothing to guarantee the right of prayer. There are many religious groups ordaining homosexuals as ministers, which is clearly not Biblical. I could just as easily say that "it's unprobable that that a school district with a minister on its board would tolerate homosexual activity". But if that minister was gay? Hmmm.



The point here being you can't deal in "probability" if you want to make a case.



That said, there is a good chance that the lawsuit brought by this couple is, in fact, frivolous. If you look hard enough, you can find Pentecostal Christians that drink strychnine and handle poisonous snakes. You can always find some element in religious groups that have ideas that are not as "mainstream" as others.



It is intellectually dishonest to portray a small group as being representative of the whole. Here's an example of the flawed logic: you can cut hair off without it hurting---> hair is a part of the body---> therefore, you can cut off any part of your body without it hurting. Not exactly a true statement, eh?



Pentecostal Christians are a part of the Christian "body". They are different than other parts of that "body". I grew up in a Pentecostal Christian home, and I have since learned that a lot of what was believed was based on an interpretation of Bible passages that was simply incorrect. Or, it was based on what someone claimed to be true about the Bible (what God "revealed" the them), but contradicted the Bible.



Anyway, the thread topic is simply this: there is a double standard, a hypocrisy that assigns equal merit to any and all beliefs EXCEPT Christianity. In an age where every religion is treated equally, Christianity is singled out as being untrue, or "out of date"-- as are its followers.



Here's some points to ponder that I hope get you, tdr reader, to think:

• When someone curses, why is it only the name of Jesus Christ that is used? Who says "Buddha" or "Mohammed", or "Dali Lama"? How come God is the only one asked to "Damn it"?
  
• Why are our years numbered relative to the birth of Christ? i. e. 2003 AD (anno domini- literally "in the year of our Lord"
  
• How is it that we have more historical evidence for the accuracy of the Hebrew Bible that any other ancient text, including both the Oddysey and the Illiad, and the writings of Plato, Socrates, and Aristotle?
  

At least, these are things that get ME thinking.



I am not here to defend Christianity necessarily, as it has a history of people who have defamed it (televangelists, the Crusades, etc. take your pick). But there is a very real culture war being waged against Christianity, and it is provable with facts, logic, and evidence---not ad hominem attacks, rumor, innuendo, emotion, and probability...



HOHN

 

[loncray]

Homosexuals being ministers - you're right, it ain't biblical. Neither are women or divorced people. Isn't divorce (without sexual immorality) just as big a sin as homosexuality - Jesus calls it adultery in Matthew. So why are there divorced evangelicals?

Why do conservatives continue to rail against homosexual ministers, yet don't say a word about divorced ministers - that part of the Bible gets forgotten.

As to the 'equal merit' of all beliefs except Christianity - I still don't believe most of the original Ann Coulter story. Now, I DO believe that a child could get suspended for something else and believe it was related to praying. I also believe that some of those stories might be true - all you need is a wacky left-wing teacher and a wacky right-wing family to make a pretty good fight of it. As a Separationist, I believe very strongly that organized prayer - be it Christian, Muslim, whatever - needs to be kept out of schools. However, there's no reason in the world a child should be kept from praying according to his or her personal beliefs (barring only those which would disturb that child's classmates, such as loud noises or gesticulations) on his or her own time.

Why is God asked to damn things and not Buddha? Because most of our ancestors were Christian or Jewish, that's all, and it wasn't 'cussing' once upon a time, it was an actual curse, asking God to send somebody to hell. Yeah, that's the Christian thing to do to somebody!

Our years are dated back to the incorrect birth of Christ because the Romans dated things that way once the Emperor converted to Christianity. Jews and Chinese people (and I'd bet a bunch of others) use a different year system completely.

Certainly some things in the Hebrew Bible are correct historically. It IS a document that, at its heart, was written during those historical times. A lot of it is completely wacky scientifically - the ages of many of the folks for example. I won't even get into the Creation myth/fact debate. But the Bible has gone thru many translations and interpretations over the millenia. To call it completely factually true after all that time is probably wishful thinking.

To me, the evangelical Christian conservatives are manufacturing a war, the better to keep their names in the papers. There's no attack on Christianity, only little skirmishes here and there that get blown completely out of proportion. Show me where some other religion is (in America) accorded more leeway than Christianity. Show me where raging Liberal Secular Humanists are shooting ministers, or pouring skunk oil into churches. Show me where radical Buddhists are leading prayers in school, or a Church of Satan website entices folks to shoot evangelists.

 

[RustyJC]

I suspect that a fundamentalist Christian family feels very much like they are in a cultural war with secularists when they send their children to public school where they are taught:



1. That homosexuality is an acceptable lifestyle.



2. How to use birth control devices should they desire to have sexual relations outside of wedlock.



3. That God did not create the heavens and earth. Rather, the universe has evolved from a Big Bang cosmic event that took place billions of years ago.



I could go on, but these few examples illustrate my point. In every case above, that which the child is being taught is diametrically opposed to the values impressed on him/her in the family environment.



Whether you agree with the fundamentalist Christian family's viewpoints or not, from a purely objective perspective, it's quite easy to see how they could feel that they are under cultural attack.



Rusty

 

[loncray]

Those folks that believe that way are precisely the sort that should be sending their children to private religious schools. Of course, then what do you do if you believe the Bible faithfully, think homosexuality is a sin, believe in Creationism, but believe that every teenager should have birth control available to them the moment they turn 13? Or perhaps you believe sex out of wedlock is a sin, but also that Evolution is how we came to be? You're never going to find a school, public or private, in which every single thing your children are taught is precisely what you believe in. The public schools are doing the best they can, and want desperately to keep religion out - because no two people believe exactly the same things. How is this a cultural attack? My son's school is teaching him math and reading and writing and how to spell - I don't WANT them teaching him any sort of religion whatsoever. That's what Sunday School is for. Fundamentalist Christians have the same rights to teach their children their beliefs as fundamentalist Muslims, or fervent Deists, or radical Buddhists. Those kids can go to Sunday Schools and learn their church's beliefs even if they aren't in public schools. Again, I think the evangelical Christians WANT a war - it gets folks all riled up, makes people so outraged that they'll believe anything that supports their views - like Ann Coulter's book. And Christians are very good at making wars - see Northern Ireland, the Crusades, etc. etc. etc.

I still don't understand how the same folks that complain about how public schools don't teach anything very well WANT those same schools teaching religion!

 

[RustyJC]

Originally posted by loncray

My son's school is teaching him math and reading and writing and how to spell - I don't WANT them teaching him any sort of religion whatsoever. That's what Sunday School is for.

I fear you miss the point. The fundamentalist Christian family feels that their children are being taught religious values in public schools - values that are diametrically opposed to those taught in the home. Secular humanism, being based on a set of foundational values and beliefs, is considered to be a religious system competing with their Christian beliefs for the hearts and minds of their children.



As I said, it really doesn't matter to me whether you agree with the values of this hypothetical fundamentalist Christian family or not. In the spirit of intellectual maturity and honesty, however, it would be beneficial to put aside your position momentarily, step back and see if you can understand how, from their perspective, they believe that they are in a cultural battle for their family's value system.



Rusty

 

[loncray]

Then my first sentence tells precisely what that family needs - private schools. If they can't handle their children being exposed to a world that has homosexuals who are okay (horrors!) or sex education that tries to stem the flow of teenage pregnancy by doing something other than teaching abstinence (the very best birth control, but completely unrealistic), then they need to keep their children in a place that teaches them THEIR beliefs without fail. A lot of Muslim children in this country go to religious schools, why don't the Christians? There are plenty of them around, and I'm sure there's plenty of financial assistance available thru various Christian charities.

I still see the only war here is the one the Christian right is making.

 

[RustyJC]

Did you read the Humanist Manifesto at the link I added? It makes it pretty obvious that there's another group at work in this conflict besides the fundamentalist Christians. Take a look... .



Rusty

 

[loncray]

Yep, I read it - very interesting. Unfortunately, though I find myself in agreement with much of what their manifesto has to say, I'd bet the number of folks who deliberately subscribe to that manifesto (and know that they do) is far outnumbered by the evangelical Christians. Now, the folks that believe many of those things but not others (such as myself) probably far outnumber the evangelical Christians, but you're talking about the warriors in this cultural war, aren't you?

So a bunch of folks with a particular belief system have made a manifesto and a website. So what? They can attack fundamentalist Christianity all day, I doubt they'd be enough to make a war.

You need to go to http://www.deism.com/deism_vs.htm to find a real ATTACK on Christianity - those folks flat don't like Christianity. Of course, they are a pretty small group as well.

So where's the war? Even within Christians are plenty of disagreements about evolution/creationism, homosexuality, birth control, etc. Exactly what positions would YOU have public schools take on these issues? Betcha yer truck your neighbor has (at least slightly) different views on these same issues. Taking a non-religious position and teaching real science isn't humanism, it's safety! Completely apart from separation of church and state, there's no way to teach a religious position on anything that everybody agrees with.

 

[RustyJC]

The Humanist Manifesto was written in 1933. The American Humanist Association was chartered in 1941. These folks have been around for a long time and have waged a very successful stealth campaign to sway much of society to their philosophies.



To wit: Part of the Eleventh tenet of the Humanist Manifesto states:

Man will learn to face the crises of life in terms of his knowledge of their naturalness and probability. Reasonable and manly attitudes will be fostered by education and supported by custom.

My mother was a public school teacher. My sister is a public school teacher. Both have witnessed firsthand the humanist influence on the educational system, starting with the training teachers receive in colleges and universities. One need only consider the changes we've seen in our public schools over the last 50-60 years to see the extent to which Christian values have been replaced by Humanist values.



Do either belong in a public school? If one states that absolutely no religion should be taught in public schools, then Humanist teachings have no more place in our public schools than Christian teachings. Unfortunately, that's not the current state of affairs.



Rusty

 

[Hohn]

Originally posted by loncray

Those folks that believe that way are precisely the sort that should be sending their children to private religious schools. Of course, then what do you do if you believe the Bible faithfully, think homosexuality is a sin, believe in Creationism, but believe that every teenager should have birth control available to them the moment they turn 13? Or perhaps you believe sex out of wedlock is a sin, but also that Evolution is how we came to be? You're never going to find a school, public or private, in which every single thing your children are taught is precisely what you believe in. The public schools are doing the best they can, and want desperately to keep religion out - because no two people believe exactly the same things. How is this a cultural attack? My son's school is teaching him math and reading and writing and how to spell - I don't WANT them teaching him any sort of religion whatsoever. That's what Sunday School is for. Fundamentalist Christians have the same rights to teach their children their beliefs as fundamentalist Muslims, or fervent Deists, or radical Buddhists. Those kids can go to Sunday Schools and learn their church's beliefs even if they aren't in public schools. Again, I think the evangelical Christians WANT a war - it gets folks all riled up, makes people so outraged that they'll believe anything that supports their views - like Ann Coulter's book. And Christians are very good at making wars - see Northern Ireland, the Crusades, etc. etc. etc.

I still don't understand how the same folks that complain about how public schools don't teach anything very well WANT those same schools teaching religion!

You are making some good points, Loncray. Unfortunately, there are some mistakes in your reasoning, at least as I see it. You say that "You're never going to find a school, public or private, in which every single thing your children are taught is precisely what you believe in". I agree with this. Who said is was the job of schools to teach EVERYTHING you believe in? Isn't that the role of the parents?????

The problem is that the schools have become places of indoctrination, not of education. As a Christian, I would CERTAINLY HOPE NOT for my kids to be learning "religious" things from the public schools. I will educate them myself in these areas, as is a parent's responsibility. The school system have overstepped its bounds by teaching things that are not its place to teach. In the name of "health" kids are taught how to perform sexual acts "safely"-- in violation of the values some parents are trying to teach. In the name of "science" kids are taught that evolution is a fact, not the theory that it is.

Moreover, kids are indoctrinated with ideals of multiculturalism. The schools go out of their way to participate in Kwanzaa, Hannukah, and all else while simultaneously banning Christmas carols. Our kids are taught that you can't say someone is bad or good, because that's relative to that persons's culture.



Because the schools have ceased to teach reading, math, and science, test scores are down. Kids aren't as well educated today. Schools dwell instead on socially engineering these malleable little minds. Schools are now laboratories for liberal/marxist ideology. Doubt me? How about when you buy school supplies for your kid, then find out that the entire class had to combine their supplies so that some people wouldn't be "left out"? After all, it's not fair that some kids have the supplies and others don't, right? Even here, kids are learning "from each according to his ability, TO each according to his need". Kids are learning that you can't hit someone because it hurts their feelings, not because it's just plain wrong to hit another kid!



You say the schools want desperately to keep religion out, but nothing could be more false. Besides secular humanism, kids are exposed to MANY religions as they study other cultures. But if these same schools are exposing kids to Christianity, then this somehow constitutes violating the"establishment" clause of the 1st amendment-- something that teaching other religions fails to do. Interesting.



I think it is an inaccurate mischaracterization to say that Christians want a war. How is it that if you are attacked, then you FIGHT BACK, it is YOU who are labelled as a war-monger, not the party that first attacked?? I be the President is baffled by this as well, since the US is labelled as a war-monger when we were the ones that were attacked.

Likewise, if you defend your values when THEY are under attack, it is not war-mongering.



I don't want the schools teaching religion, OR values to my kids. Nor do I want them to prohibit "the free exercise thereof" in anyway.



By any measure, it's hard to say that we have had success in society since we kicked God out of the public square. The rates of crime, teen pregancy, divorce, etc etc seem to point to things being better when God was not banned.



While I will not call for Christianity to be the official US religion, or infringe in any way upon the freedom of religion, I WILL point out that the founders of this country all held deeply Christian religious convictions.



We would all be worse off if the gov't got involved in teaching or spreading Christianity, or any other religion. (don't get me started on the "faith-based initiative" crap).



You would be better able to effectively argue against the Christian position if you actually UNDERSTOOD the Christian position on these issues.



JLH

 

[Hohn]

Hey if you don't want to read all my long post above, just read this:



As a Christian, I don't want the schools UN-TEACHING my kids. Why should I have to fight the schools on preserving the values i want my kids to have, instead of them supporting me? At the very least, leave the values inculcation to me, and stop undoing what I am trying to do with my kids!!!!



Justin

 

[loncray]

Well, my wife is a public school teacher, and my son goes to a Marva Collins-model 'traditional' elementary school. My wife is a Christian, Presbyterian in fact, and I know she's to the right of me on this issue - she rails at the schools for being very picky about making sure there are no overtly religious songs in her Winter Break play. But there is no Kwaanza or Hanakuh either, so I don't know where you might be seeing that. Tain't in my son's school either - just Winter Break. Now, I don't see that as humanism so much as avoiding calling it Christmas/Hanakuh/Kwaanza/Saturnalia break.

As to the teaching of birth control, too many parents weren't teaching their children anything, and the only other place with a lot of kids was school. Parents can still opt their children out of those classes, so how's that an attack?

As to evolution, sure, it's a theory. But it's one with plenty of science behind it, obviously far more than creationism. If we're going to teach about our planet, you have to go with science, and the theory of evolution is part of that. If you don't believe in it, teach your children differently.

As to combining supplies, my son's school doesn't do that, my wife's school doesn't either.

As to hurting another kid's feelings, I can't speak to that.

Nobody kicked God out of public schools - nobody is stopping kids from praying on their own (no matter what Ann Coulter might say). Crime and teen pregnancy went down for the past decade (though I can't speak to the divorce rate) - guess all those secular humanists must be teaching something right!

I can't agree that the Founding Fathers were Christians, certainly not as the fundamentalists today would define it. My own belief is that they were Deists, but I leave that discussion to another day.

I agree with you 100% on the govt. getting involved. As to my understanding of the Christian point of view, you can only give me the Hohn point of view, just as I can only give you my own. Other Christians will have different points of view than you, some of them wildly different from your own.

 

[Hohn]

True, I can only present to you my opinion.



But, it is NOT true that all opinions are created equally! I find positions that are supported by logic and evidence to be much more credible than those that are not.



Ann Coulter's writings are supported by logic and evidence. Denying this is true does not change that it is. She can be offensive, petty, and over-the-top-- but you won't often (if ever) see her facts in error.



JLH

 

[Champane Flight]

Lions

Turn the lions loose!

 

[Champane Flight]

Counter Coulter

Original research a/o commentary by Dr. Limerick is in italics.



LATEST UPDATE: September 18, 2002



NEW STUFF



SLANDER. (page unk) The NYT, by endorsing liberal presidential candidates, has gone for over 25 years without endorsing the winner of the majority of the popular vote. FACT. In the last three Presidential elections (i. e. since 1989, 13 years, over half of Coulter's alleged dry spell), the NYT has endorsed the winner of the popular vote, although third-party spoilers did prevent the winner to have an absolute majority. DAVID'S JOURNAL, 9/16/2002. COMMENT. This twist on the facts cannot have been other than deliberate.



p. 10. SLANDER. Criticizes Al Gore for airing campaign ad featuring the daughter of hate-crime victim James Byrd. FACT. Here we have Jim Ryan, GOP candidate for Governor of Illinois, doing it wholesale by inviting the families (plural) of murder victims (plural) to help at his fund-raisers. LINK



p. 15. SLANDER. "[In the New York Times] there have been only 11 sightings of a 'liberal Republican'. " FACT. Maybe it's because Coulter, and other doctrinaire conservatives like her, want to throw Republicans like Lincoln Chafee out of the party. (Slander, p. 32).











MULTIPLE OR UNKNOWN PAGES



SLANDER. Liberals have been wrong about everything for the past 50 years. FACT. To support this claim, AHC tells us that the southern Senators opposing the Civil Rights Act were "liberals. " SALON. COM



SLANDER. Journalists are, on the whole, biased to the left. FACT. To help prove this, she says that Rush Limbaugh and his right-wing ilk don't count because they are commentators, not journalists, but does quote liberal commentators such as Maureen Dowd to demonstrate journalists' bias. SPINSANITY.



SLANDER. AHC chooses Noam Chomsky and Susan Sontag as typifying liberal reaction to 9/11. FACT. This is absurd on its face. SALON. COM.



SLANDER. Conservatives do not stoop to name-calling. Liberals do it all the time. FACT. GOPAC, Newt Gingrich's captive PAC, famously issued a memo suggesting the following words to describe Democrats: "sick, traitors, destructive, corrupt, bizarre, cheat, and steal. " Such constructive advice is the sum total of the memo – how to (shall we say?) slander Democrats. DAVIS.



ACTUAL PAGE CITES



1. SLANDER. The NYT on Tom DeLay: "For his evident belief in a higher being, DeLay is compared to savage murderers and genocidal lunatics on the pages of the New York Times. (“History teaches that when religion is injected into politics—the Crusades, Henry VIII, Salem, Father Coughlin, Hitler, Kosovo—disaster follows. ”)" FACT. The quotation comes from an NYT article, 6/20/99, that starts off criticizing DeLay. However, the quoted sentence directly refers to—Al Gore! (it can be read to indirectly refer to G. W. Bush as well). HOWLER.



2. SLANDER. "Americans wake up in the morning to “America’s Sweetheart,” Katie Couric, berating Arlen Specter about Anita Hill ten years after the hearings. . . " FACT. Specter went on the Today show to promote his book, which included a discussion of the Clarence Thomas hearings, and Couric asked, "you accused [Anita Hill] of publicly, quote, “flat out perjury. ” Any regrets?" COMMENT. This is "berating?" Especially when Specter, in his book, brought up the subject himself. HOWLER.



2. SLANDER. "Liberals dispute slight reductions in the marginal tax rates as if they are trying to prevent Charles Manson from slaughtering baby seals. " FACT. This is mere hyperbole, neither true nor false. But it tells us something about the care with which the book was written; image is everything. Dr. Limerick, a liberal who has never spent more than two consecutive days in New York, does believe that tax policy is the more important. Although Charles Manson slaughtering baby seals would be an appalling and heartbreaking sight, the actual damage to the nation would be small. But even slight reductions in marginal tax rates (on the prosperous; I typically don't object to reducing tax rates on the poor) can in many cases do large damage to the commonweal, both because the government is starved of necessary revenue and because of the bad effect on the distribution of income and wealth. Dr. Limerick.







4. SLANDER. November 5, 2001 was "precisely three weeks" after September 11, 2001. FACT. It's a day less than eight weeks. It's four weeks after the first attacks on Afghanistan. Trivial? Sure, but it shows how well she proofreads. TAP





5. SLANDER: In a column published soon after 9/11, Frank Rich (of NYT) demanded that Ashcroft ignore Muslim terrorists and focus on anti-abortion extremists. FACT. Rich said no such thing. REBUTTAL. On Hannity & Colmes, 6/25/02, AHC said this was an "accurate paraphrase. "(?) DAVIS





5. SLANDER. Paraphrase of Jerry Falwell, 9/14/01: "Falwell had remarked that gay marriage and abortion on demand may not have warmed the heart of the Almighty. " This was used to slam Walter Cronkite for calling Falwell's comments "abominable. " FACT. As is well known, Falwell took the occasion to blame all his usual enemies (gays, abortionists, ACLU, etc. ) for the 9/11 attacks. DAVIS



5. SLANDER. 9/11 "provided liberals with a religion they could respect. " FACT. AHC provides absolutely no documentation for this claim. Scoobie also points out, correctly, that a lawyer (magna cum laude from Michigan, no less!) should understand the difference between forcing school kids to pray and permitting the prisoners at Camp X-Ray to pray. DAVIS



12. SLANDER. In NYT article on Clarence Thomas: "He is called 'a colored lawn jockey for conservative white interests,' 'race traitor,' 'black snake,' 'chicken-and-biscuit-eating Uncle Tom,' 'house Negro' and 'handkerchief head,' 'Benedict Arnold' and "Judas Iscariot'. "" FACT. The NYT did not, as AHC would like you to believe, author these epithets. They are due to, among others, Jocelyn Elders and Joseph Lowery. SALON. COM.





15. SLANDER: NYT uses phrase "moderate Republican" 168 times, "liberal Republican" 11 times. FACT. "liberal Republican" 22 times over 1996-present; 524 hits for entire database. TAP



16, 33-4, 125, 130-134, 145, 197. SLANDER. Reagan won the Cold War. FACT. At best debatable. Soviet sources say that Reagan's acceleration of the arms race had little effect on Soviet military spending. TAP



17. SLANDER. The media calls only conservative women names like "ugly. " FACT. Conservative uglification and derision: Rush Limbaugh on Chelsea Clinton, Hillary Clinton, Ann Richards, Donna Shalala; Jay Leno, others on Janet Reno; AHC herself on Bella Abzug ("A blind man in America would think the ugliest women ever to darken the planet are Paula Jones, Linda Tripp, and Katherine Harris. This from the party of Bella Abzug. "). DAVIS, TAP, ROEPER. COMMENT. Let's not forget the National Review's column saying that Chelsea should be killed before she has a chance to reproduce.







51. SLANDER. Katie Couric called Ronald Reagan an "airhead. " FACT. On the Today show, 9/27/99, Couric said, "Good morning. The Gipper was an airhead. That’s one of the conclusions of a new biography of Ronald Reagan that’s drawing a tremendous amount of interest and fire today. " I. e. , Couric said Morris called Reagan an airhead, and this is what AHC misstated. Indeed, in the furor over the book, Dutch, lots of TV hosts, left and right, were saying that Morris called Reagan an airhead. This gets confusing because in fact, Morris had said he started off thinking Reagan an airhead, but changed his mind as the project wore on, but that is not what AHC was talking about. DAILY HOWLER, 7/15-19/02, rebutting KAUSFILES 7/8/02.



57. SLANDER. She cites a study showing that during the 2000 campaign, the NYT ran twice as many anti-Gore articles as anti-Bush, and twice as many pro-Bush as pro-Gore, then pretends to have refuted it by saying, "Claims of 'conservative bias in the media at large are amusing oddities. But a claim that the New York Times has a conservative bias can be explained only by the sheer joy liberals take in telling lies. " FACT. Nowhere does she address the substance of the study; she merely tries to laugh it off. SPINSANITY.



98-101. SLANDER. The "liberal" media is surprised that conservative policy books become best sellers because they cannot imagine that anyone would want to read a conservative book. FACT. The media is surprised whenever a dense policy tome like The Closing of the American Mind is a best-seller. This applies equally across the spectrum. SALON. COM







134. SLANDER. NYT, 3/12/2000, called Bush Jr. an "airhead. " FACT. The Times was quoting a Republican, a disappointed McCain supporter. HOWLER.





145, 154, 159-60. SLANDER: Al Gore lied about how he and Tipper were the inspiration for "Love Story. " FACT: Many years ago, Erich Segal, the author, told the Nashville Tennessean that Al had been the model for Oliver, but Tipper had not been the model for Jenny. Unfortunately, the Tennessean got it wrong, and said that Al and Tipper had been the models. That's where Al got the story. Was Al lying? No. TAP COMMENT. Besides, isn't including Tipper good ol'fashioned gallantry? Ann's offhand epithets like "girly boys" and "parakeet males" suggest that she should approve.









Truthfully yours,



/s/



Dr. Rush Limerick