Who Needs Truth, When An Alternative Universe Exists?

[Annie]

Links at site. Welcome to the talking points world:

http://www.opinionjournal.com/best/?id=110007733

BY JAMES TARANTO
Tuesday, December 27, 2005 3:31 p.m. EST

It's Mao or Never
"The UMass Dartmouth student who claimed to have been visited by Homeland Security agents over his request for 'The Little Red Book' by Mao Zedong has admitted to making up the entire story," reports the Standard-Times of New Bedford, Mass.:

The 22-year-old student tearfully admitted he made the story up to his history professor, Dr. Brian Glyn Williams, and his parents, after being confronted with the inconsistencies in his account.

Among those who fell for the story, as we noted Friday, was Sen. Ted Kennedy of Massachusetts, who cited it in a Boston Globe op-ed piece (though he claimed the book in question was "the official Chinese version of Mao Tse-tung's Communist Manifesto"). According to a Globe news story on the hoax, the Globe interviewed the shifty student--whose request for anonymity both papers have respected even though he lied to them--"but decided not to write a story about his assertion, because of doubts about its veracity."

Kennedy, meanwhile, apologized for slandering America's dedicated law-enforcement agents by portraying them as totalitarian thugs.

Ha ha, we fooled you! Here's the actual Kennedy response as reported by the Globe:

Laura Capps, a Kennedy spokeswoman, said last night that the senator cited ''public reports" in his opinion piece. Even if the assertion was a hoax, she said, it did not detract from Kennedy's broader point that the Bush administration has gone too far in engaging in surveillance.

This puts is in mind of a 1953 quote from science-fiction author Robert Heinlein:

I found in traveling around the world that a great many people . . ., apparently well educated and sophisticated, were convinced that the people of the United States were in the grip of terror and that free speech and free press no longer existed here. They believed that the United States was fomenting a third world war and would presently start it, with Armageddon consequences for everyone else, and that the government of the United States smashed without mercy anyone who dared to oppose even by oral protests this headlong rush toward disaster.

These people could "prove" their opinions by quoting any number of Americans and American newspapers and magazines. That they were able to quote such American sources proved just the opposite, namely that we do continue to enjoy free speech even to express arrant nonsense and unpopular opinion, escaped them completely.

The University of Massachusetts' Amherst campus is hosting a conference next October on "Rethinking Marxism." Indeed, anyone who has set foot on a college campus in the past 30 years knows that communist ideas are commonplace, as one might expect in institutions that are sheltered from reality. The Mao yarn was never believable in the slightest for anyone except someone like Ted Kennedy, who is only strengthened in his prejudices when the evidence for them is discredited.

 

[Annie]

Two more examples, from above source, (scroll down a tad), links at site:

Unfrozen Caveman Leader

"Ladies and gentlemen of the jury, I'm just a caveman. I fell on some ice and was later thawed by some of your scientists. Your world frightens and confuses me! . . . When I see my image on the security camera at the country club, I wonder, are they stealing my soul? I get so upset, I hop out of my Range Rover, and run across the fairway to the clubhouse, where I get Carlos to make me one of those martinis he's so famous for, to soothe my primitive caveman brain. But whatever world you're from, I do know one thing--in the 20 years from March 22, 1972, when he first ordered that extra nicotine be put into his product, until February 25, 1992, when he issued an interoffice memorandum stopping the addition of that nicotine, my client was legally insane."--Phil Hartman as "Unfrozen Caveman Lawyer," "Saturday Night Live," March 23, 1996

"Mr. President, maybe I didn't have the education of a lot of my friends. I was educated in a little school in Searchlight, Nev. We didn't have English class. Maybe my choice of words wasn't perfect. Maybe I should have said we killed the conference report. But the fact is, that is what we had done. People can try to change the words and the meaning of it all they want, but that is what happened. I may not have the ability to express myself like the folks who were educated in all these private schools and fancy schools, but I understand the Senate rules. Everyone knows that cloture was defeated, killed, whatever you want to call it. That means that cloture was defeated and that bill is still before the Senate."--Harry Reid as "Unfrozen Caveman Leader," "U.S. Senate," Dec. 19, 2005

Shove It, Ahmadinejad!
Last week Teresa Heinz Kerry, the outspoken ketchup heiress and philanthropist whose husband*, a haughty, French-looking Massachusetts Democrat, by the way served in Vietnam, weighed in in the Forward, a Jewish weekly, where she blasted President Bush for his "outrageous silence" after Iranian ruler Mahmoud Ahmadinejad denied the Holocaust:

The Bush administration--which so often answers challenges with confrontational language--took this occasion to whisper. With the exception of America's ambassador to the United Nations, John Bolton, who denounced the remarks as "pernicious and unacceptable," the Bush administration explained those comments as if they had been uttered by a crazy relative--and then returned to its talking points on Iran's nuclear weapons program. . . . Not a single word of disapproval passed the president's lips.

Heinz Kerry's husband** happens to serve in the U.S. Senate, and he did issue a little-noticed statement denouncing Ahmadinejad. On the other hand, in last year's presidential debate he criticized President Bush for not providing the mad mullahs with nuclear fuel. And earlier this year, Mr. Heinz Kerry participated in a smear campaign and a filibuster against John Bolton, whom his better half now praises.

On the same day the Forward piece appeared, the New York Sun reported on more recent doings of Mr. Heinz Kerry's party in the Senate:

A Senate resolution condemning the president of Iran for anti-Semitic comments he made earlier this month is riling its Republican sponsors on Capitol Hill. They claim Senate Democrats forced them to strip language from the document expressing support for self-determination and a national referendum in the country.

Senator [Rick] Santorum, a Republican of Pennsylvania, drafted the resolution after a December 14 speech in which Mahmoud Ahmadinejad called the Holocaust a "myth" and suggested Israel be relocated to Europe, Canada, or Alaska. In its original form, the statement condemned the remarks, demanded an apology, and supported efforts by "the people of Iran to exercise self-determination" and hold a national referendum with oversight by international observers.

When Mr. Santorum moved to introduce the resolution last Friday, Senator [Ron] Wyden, a Democrat of Oregon, registered an unusual objection. According to the Congressional Record, Mr. Wyden told Mr. Santorum on the Senate floor that he was objecting to the resolution because his Democratic colleagues in the Senate had asked him too [sic]. Mr. Wyden did not say who asked him to issue the objection.

"While I personally am vehemently opposed to the statements that have been made by the president of Iran," Mr. Wyden said, "I have been asked by the members on this side of the aisle to object, and I do so object."

Meanwhile, Tehran seems to be distancing itself from Ahmadinejad's comments. "An Iranian official on Friday called for the establishment of a committee to clarify the real extent of the Holocaust, the news agency Fars reported," according to Ha'aretz:

"Ahmadinejad wants European governments to allow Western scholars to publish their research on the Holocaust," Mohammad-Ali Ramin, head of the Society for defending the rights of Muslim minorities in the West, told Fars.

"Ahmadinejad should therefore propose establishment of an international committee for clarifying the real extent of the Holocaust," the official added.

Here's a thought: What if Ambassador Bolton were to propose a U.N. General Assembly resolution simply affirming that the Holocaust took place? It could be enlightening to let Iran and other Muslim nations go on record either acknowledging or denying it.

* John Kerry.

** Fop cit.

 

[Gunny]

Links at site. Welcome to the talking points world:

http://www.opinionjournal.com/best/?id=110007733

I'm not REALLY suppose to understand this am I? :scratch:

 

[Annie]

I'm not REALLY suppose to understand this am I? :scratch:

Well in order to really get it, you must spend a lot of time reading some of the libs. Of course, understanding is different than recognizing...

 

[Gunny]

Well in order to really get it, you must spend a lot of time reading some of the libs. Of course, understanding is different than recognizing...

I'm just having a hard time with whole premise here. Homeland Security supposedly came after this kid for requesting a book .... then it turns out he lied. And it appears only Teddy the Negligent Homicide guy believed it.

 

[Annie]

I'm just having a hard time with whole premise here. Homeland Security supposedly came after this kid for requesting a book .... then it turns out he lied. And it appears only Teddy the Negligent Homicide guy believed it.

Oh no, just yesterday, 3 days after it had been proven a lie, the Sacramento Bee published an editorial based on the big, bad, HSD and the draconian actions towards the poor student. All based on a lie.

 

[Gunny]

Oh no, just yesterday, 3 days after it had been proven a lie, the Sacramento Bee published an editorial based on the big, bad, HSD and the draconian actions towards the poor student. All based on a lie.

The part I don't get is WHO exactly did he request Mao's Communist Manifesto from? I'd figure a good college boy would've just looked on the net.

I guess the point I'm trying to make is that just a cursory look at the accusation shows a lack of common sense.

We have all sorts of subversive, anti-democracy groups in the US (the DNC comes to mind). Why would anyone give credence to a story that is nonsensical.

But then I recall Abu Ghraib, Plame, Bush Lied a 1,000 times, Bush stole the election, etc.

Guess it makes sense.

 

[Annie]

The part I don't get is WHO exactly did he request Mao's Communist Manifesto from? I'd figure a good college boy would've just looked on the net.

I guess the point I'm trying to make is that just a cursory look at the accusation shows a lack of common sense.

We have all sorts of subversive, anti-democracy groups in the US (the DNC comes to mind). Why would anyone give credence to a story that is nonsensical.

But then I recall Abu Ghraib, Plame, Bush Lied a 1,000 times, Bush stole the election, etc.

Guess it makes sense.

That's exactly what happened when the story first 'broke' on the MSM. The blogs started saying, "Whoa, doesn't sound right." Best of the Web and others quickly started to apply pressure. Then the professor went to the 'student', still NOT identified. Anyhow, with inconsistencies coming out, he told the truth.

Yet the MSM didn't bother. Sad and speaks volumes. When the Sac Bee still keeps repeating it, again it speaks to the truthfulness of the whole.

 

[Abbey Normal]

Draconian police and harassed college students, ey? Makes me want to drag out my tie-dyed shirt, bong, and Dead albums. Groovy times we live in.

Come on, everyone. Let's hop on the USMB bus and make picket signs for our campus visits.

 

[Gunny]

Draconian police and harassed college students, ey? Makes me want to drag out my tie-dyed shirt, bong, and Dead albums. Groovy times we live in.

Come on, everyone. Let's hop on the USMB bus and make picket signs for our campus visits.

Can't I just bring some weapons? :2guns:

 

[Abbey Normal]

Can't I just bring some weapons? :2guns:

I was counting on it!

 

[Gunny]

I was counting on it!

Just a few .....