WHO'S RESPONSIBLE?

After a private airplane with an amateur pilot at the controls wandered into Washington airspace recently, The Washington Post reported that Secretary of Defense Donald Rumsfeld had given the military his permission to shoot the plane down, and the Air Force was within 20 seconds of blowing the Cessna out of the sky when it finally turned away from the capital. It was a a fascinating story of life-or-death decisions made on the basis of little information, with no time to spare. Unfortunately, it wasn't true.

Rumsfeld denied the story the next day, saying that he had not been consulted about the incursion and hadn't gotten on the phone to anyone during the episode. Despite his denial, the Post hasn't given up on the story, insisting that it had reliable sources, even though the sources have backed off somewhat.

Most of all, the Post says that it asked the Pentagon about the story and didn't get a denial or a caution not to run with it. Nobody "waved the paper off," said its ombudsman, who has the unenviable task of defending sometimes indefensible stories.

This idea that the Pentagon is responsible for vetting stories proposed by the media and "waving off" the inaccurate ones is gaining traction. It was used by Newsweek to justify its story on military interrogators supposedly flushing the Koran down a toilet at the Gauntanamo Bay detention facility (written by someone who clearly has no familiarity with plumbing -- no book that size would fit down a toilet). The theory that the military could prevent these stories from being published is bogus on at least two grounds.

First, only rarely is the Pentagon, or anybody else, given enough time to properly check out a story. The reporter in charge usually contacts the target institution late in the day and says, I'm writing for tomorrow's paper and the following wild charge has been made . . . There simply isn't time to check it out. Since a blanket denial wouldn't be believed and, even worse, might be inaccurate, the institution will frequently pass on the opportunity to comment, giving the media the chance to say that the institution "did not deny" the story.

Secondly, and more importantly, the newspaper, magazine, TV show, or other media entity, has sole, total and complete responsibility for everything it publishes or broadcasts, and it can't dump that responsibility on whoever answers the phone at the Pentagon at five o'clock. It was up to the Washington Post to come up with persuasive evidence that Rumsfeld gave the OK for a shoot-down, and it failed to do so.

At best, it appears, the chain of command was following a standing order that any aircraft that appears to pose a threat to the White House, Capitol, or other important buildings, can be destroyed, probably on the authority of someone well below the secretary of defense. That may be news, but it is not the same as Iron Don shouting into a telephone, "Shoot the s.o.b. down!" In the post 9/11 world, it's hardly even news that the Air Force would protect the capital city with deadly force if necessary.

The term "wave-off" comes from the signal given by a Navy officer on an aircraft carrier, telling a pilot his approach isn't right and he has to try again. It's an order, not a piece of advice. The media would never take orders from the military, and the military doesn't give advice. A newspaper has to make up its own mind if its story is fit to print. Too often these days, that responsibility is being evaded.

JOHN PAUL LAID TO REST
The man of peace had a peaceful funeral, so different from that of a secular head of state. No cannons firing in salute, no fighter jets roaring overhead, no soliders snapping to attention and carrying the casket -- just guards in colorful costumes with ornamental pikes and the Gentlemen of the Holy Father, Italian bluebloods dressed in white tie and tails. He got much the same Mass as any Catholic would get, except that a million people stood nearby and monarchs and heads of state or government of nearly ninety countries were in attendance. The only major country not represented was China, which went into its usual snit when Taiwan showed up.

Cardinal Ratzinger drew lessons from the Pope's long and eventful life and compared them to the scriptural words of the Savior. He did not extoll the virtues of the dead Pope, a secular eulogy not being in the Catholic style, but simply declared that John Paul was no doubt looking down from Heaven. The sentiment was shared by thousands in St. Peter's Square and expressed in banners calling on the church to declare him a saint.

Bill Clinton, a thoroughly secular man, said the Pope had a "mixed legacy." Not really. He has a rich and complicated legacy that will take years to fully comprehend and assimilate, but the only thing "mixed" about his life and legacy was the public reaction to it. Millions of Catholics "disagreed" with him on various issues, and most of them cannot understand why their views are not as good as his. But the Pope was the vicar of Christ, not a politician. He proclaimed truth, not a platform. If he had compromised his own principles for the sake of popularity, would millions of people have streamed to Rome for his funeral? Then his legacy would truly have been mixed.

SLUGGER'S SILENCE SPEAKS VOLUMES
When Mark McGwire's voice shook and he seemed close to tears during his testimony yesterday, I thought at first he was moved by the story of a 17-year-old athlete who committed suicide after using steroids. But as McGwire refused to answer question after question, I realized that Big Mac was weeping inside over his own reputational suicide.

Never again will any halfway intelligent sports fan take seriously his mark of 70 home runs in 1998. Take the asterisk off Roger Maris' record of 61; hang it on McGwire's, and let the footnote say, "Believed to be on steroids."

In fact, take all the records for most home runs in a season from 1998 to 2001 -- records set by McGwire, Sammy Sosa, and Barry Bonds -- and put them in a category called "The Steroids Era."

McGwire looks like he has lost a couple of shirt sizes since his glory days. Sosa answered the committee's questions with carefully worded responses that left open all sorts of pharmaceutical possibilities. Bonds, who was not summoned, is up to his neck in the Balco scandal.

There are baseball devotees who wish that the House Government Reform Committee had never heard of steroids. George Will dismissed the hearing as a publicity stunt. What will George say now that some of the biggest names in the sport have been left lying in the dust? Thomas Boswell of the Washington Post was reduced to muttering in print that baseball fans will talk about the hearing for years. Duhhh. Only the willfully blind can fail to see that juice, not exercise and clean living, gave these guys the muscle needed to break records that had stood since 1927 and 1961 -- and do it six times in four years.

Speaking of the willfully blind -- the so-called commissioner of baseball, Bud Selig, actually claimed the problem has been blown out of proportion: "Do we have a major problem? No," he said.

Hopefully that is true in the limited sense that the long balls aren't flying the way they were in 1998-2001. Bonds holds the record with 73. Scared straight, he slumped. His batting average has actually improved since 2001, but his home runs dropped to 45 or 46, which is what he was hitting ten years before.

Bonds' amazing season in 2001 attracted attention to his bulked-up physique, which was due partly to a rigorous workout regimen and partly to substances provided by Victor Conte of the now-notorious Balco Laboratories. As one muscle magazine reported in an admiring article: "Conte precisely measures the nutrient levels in the outfielder's blood, and then prescribes specific supplemental regimens to correct imbalances. Like the managers of every National League team, Bonds has noticed the difference. 'I'm just shocked by what they've been able to do for me,' he says."

Yeah, right. Shocked . . . shocked!

MUSLIM LEADERS IN SPAIN DENOUNCE BIN LADEN
Muslim leaders in Spain have taken the bold step of condemning Osama bin Laden, the instigator of 9/11 and other crimes against humanity. The Islamic Commission of Spain, the national umbrella group for Muslim organizations, issued a "fatwa," or decree, declaring that bin Laden has committed the crime of making up his own laws.

"The terrorist acts of Osama bin Laden and his organization al-Qaida ... are totally banned and must be roundly condemned as part of Islam," the edict said. It was issued one year after bombs planted by terrorists on commuter trains in Madrid killed 191 people.

The commission is an officially recognized group that has tried to smooth relations between the Spanish state and its growing Muslim community. It urged imams in Spain to denounce terrorism in their Friday prayers and thank the Spanish people and their government for not lashing out at the Muslim community in the wake of the bombings.

The Spanish fatwa is the first such decree issued anywhere in the Muslim world. Muslim clerics and political leaders have been reluctant to denounce bin Laden, partly due to his immense popularity among Muslim and widespread agreement with his aims and methods. Many also obviously fear retribution at the hands of bin Laden devotees and other Muslim fanatics. Terrorism is aimed at Muslims as much as it is aimed at the west.

Extremists killed author Farag Foda in Cairo in 1993 in retribution for his writings criticizing Islamic society; tried to kill Naguib Mahfouz, the first Egyptian to win the Nobel Prize in Literature, for alleged insults to Muhammad in a novel; and are suspected in the murder of Theo Van Gogh, the Dutch filmmaker who made a movie denouncing violence against women in traditional Islamic societies.

Muslim writers insist that the extremists do not represent mainstream Islam, and hopefully that is true. People in the west would believe that more readily if other Islamic councils would also denounce bin Laden and his ilk. The early going is not encouraging, however. Mansur Escudero, secretary general of the Spanish commission, said he consulted with Muslim leaders in North Africa and found that they agreed in principle. But they have not yet spoken out.

History offers many examples of people who stood on the sidelines until it was safe to cheer. The sooner mainstream Muslims feel free to denounce the extremists, the sooner Islam will join the modern world.

"COURAGE," DAN. WRITE WHEN YOU GET WORK
I knew he would say "courage." How could he not? To resurrect, at the very end, one of the most bizarre passages in a long and strange career, was vintage Dan Rather, wishing "courage" to people he never met and to untold millions who have never heard of him. Dan Rather, the greatest hurricane reporter of all time, bucking up the spirits of tsunami victims and anyone else who needs a little encouragement as he finally signed off, as isolated and lonesome as a Bible salesman at a hoot show.

Walter Cronkite, for one, was not mourning Rather's departure. "It surprised quite a few people at CBS and elsewhere that, without being able to pull up the ratings beyond third in a three-man field, that they tolerated his being there for so long," he said on CNN. Rather, of course, elbowed Cronkite aside 24 years ago, and the resentment obviously still burns in Uncle Walter's heart.

It is very unlikely that another anchorman will engage in Rather-style escapades such as donning native costume to check out the war in Afghanistan. Gunga Dan managed to find an exchange of mortar rounds between Afghan rebels and Soviet troops and stood up on a ridgeline, with flashes of shellfire illuminating him in silhouette, to narrate the brief battle as if he was standing on Omaha Beach on D-Day. He raced to Florida just after Hurricane Andrew and reported ably on the human impact, laced with unexpected questions such as "Are you Catholic?" to a Hispanic man with a cross around his neck.

Dan Rather loved hurricanes. Covering a Texas hurricane got him a job at the Dallas bureau of CBS, and he was there was JFK was killed, and the rest is history.

Dan ran out of gas a long time ago, and his election-night coverage became mere rote recitations of canned Ratherisms. The last one that sounded true was in 1992, “George Bush has his back to the wall, his shirt tail’s on fire, and the bill collector’s at the door.”

Rather's reputation for the bizarre was so pronounced that no one believed him when he claimed he was beaten up by a man who kept shouting, "Kenneth, what is the frequency?" The story turned out to be perfectly true; a paranoid man who thought CBS was beaming broadcasts into his head mistook him for a technician named Kenneth.

Perhaps the experience of knowing that he was right, despite hoots of derision, gave him the nerve to insist, and to continue insisting, that his story on young George Bush's military service was, in some sense, true. Recently he insisted that the report of the review panel, which most people found devastating, did not completely refute the story. So Dan goes down with his flags flying, but his reputation is as tarnished as the silver service of the old lady who hasn't touched it for forty years. So long, Dan. Courage.

BOLTON'S TRUTH-TELLING CONSIDERED NOT DIPLOMATIC
If a diplomat is a man paid to lie for his country, it's amazing that John Bolton has ever drawn a paycheck. He seems keeps committing the diplomatic sin of telling the truth.

Bolton described North Korea's Kim Jong Il as a "tyrannical dictator" who runs an "evil regime" that has imposed a "hellish nightmare" on its subjects. By all accounts, this description is perfectly true.

The UN's infamous resolution equating Zionism with racism was the "greatest stain" on the world body's reputation. A great Democrat, Daniel Patrick Moynihan, led the opposition to the resolution.

The United States is the "only real power left in the world." If not us, who? France?

Bolton has in many other ways expressed skepticism about the UN and about the efficacy of the "international community" in tackling serious issues head-on. In other words, Bolton lives in the real world, not a dream world in which the lions are lying down with the lambs.

For this, the left will oppose him vigorously and will undoubtedly enlist many unwary Democrats in a campaign to defeat him. The Dems who sign up for the anti-Bolton effort will of course be falling into a trap set by President Bush. They will be seen on television badgering a man who is skeptical of the United Nations. Trouble is, most Americans are pretty skeptical of the UN, too. Oil for food, anyone?

Perhaps the Senate debate on Bolton's ambassadorship will degenerate to the level of the Senate's consideration of his nomination as undersecretary of state for arms control. "My problem with you over the years is that you've been too competent," Senator Joseph Biden of Delaware told Bolton back then. "I would rather you be stupid and not very effective." Well, Biden should know.

COLORADO PRESIDENT TAKES THE FALL FOR ROCKY MOUNTAIN SCANDALS
Elizabeth Hoffman, president of the University of Colorado, chose to fall on her sword today, resigning over CU's football recruiting scandal and the uproar that following publication of a nutcase professor's comments comparing 9/11 victims to Nazis.

It was not immediately clear how much she jumped and how much she was pushed by the regents, but you don't need the cast of "CSI" to spot the handprints all over her back.

"It has become clear to many in the CU family that our university -- one of the most distinguished in the nation -- has suffered greatly from a series of controversies that seem to be growing, not abating," Board of Regents Chairman Jerry Rutledge said in a statement. "On Monday, President Hoffman realized the future of CU is far more important than any single individual."

Thanks for clearing that up, Jerry.

Dr. Hoffman was clearly unable to deal with the tide of bad news on the campus and had to go. One wonders who can be recruited to do better.

The last straw was probably the leaking of a grand jury report claiming that two female trainers were sexually assaulted by an assistant coach and that the football program had a slush fund created with money from Coach Gary Barnett's football camp.

Barnett's head may be the next to roll. He was suspended briefly last year for criticizing a female placekicker. His criticism that she "wasn't a very good kicker" was apparently quite true, but got him into hot water anyway.

Meanwhile, Ward Churchill, the underqualified if outspoken head of ethnic studies, gets to keep his teaching job. He gave up his position as coordinator of the program, but that tour of duty was scheduled to end soon anyway. Football coaches can be disciplined and even forced out, but not affirmative-action professors.

It is rare for anyone in the academic community to pay a real penalty for outspokenness. In this case, it wasn't even the outspoken one who paid the price -- just a nice lady who happened to be in charge while the termites were at work in the athletic department and in ethnic studies. Good luck, Buffs!

LIBERALS ADRIFT IN A SEA OF UNCERTAINTY
You would think that Washington's most dedicated liberals could come up with an interesting manifesto or ideological road map, a statement of what they want to do and how they plan to do it. Apparently, you'd be wrong.

The editors of The New Republic celebrated the magazine's 90th anniversary with a collection of essays on the future of liberalism. Judging from the article, it hasn't got one.

A liberal revival driven by an upheaval similar to that of the 1930's isn't likely, according to John B. Judis in his essay on the history and future of liberalism in America.

"What is more probable is a gradual move back toward the center, where older programs would be protected from assault (although not from refinement), where incremental change could be made, and where the stage could be set for a fuller revival if circumstances warranted," he wrote.

There's a real call to arms for you. To the barricades! Protect older programs! Make incremental change! Who is going to ring doorbells for that?

Jonathan Chait, defending liberal economic thinking, argues that it is more pragmatic, while conservatism is more principled. This is no doubt true. If it works, it's good, is an old liberal watchword. It also virtually guarantees that liberals will blow an uncertain trumpet: We don't know what we will do, but put us in there and we will find something!

E.J. Dionne Jr. makes a plea for more respect for religion within Democratic ranks. A worthy thought. Too bad so few Democrats actually agree.

Peter Beinart, last seen calling for a more muscular Democratic foreign policy, also a position shared by few Democrats, now says that Democratic rhetoric on foreign affairs should prominently include apologies for past American misdeeds. The Democrats had a president like that once: Jimmy Carter. He got booted out of office in a landslide.

Martin Peretz, owner of the magazine, in his own essay, mourns liberalism's lack of forward-looking ideas and its fatal attraction to such dysfunctional institutions as the United Nations. "Liberalism now needs to be liberated from many of its own illusions and delusions. Let's hope we still have the strangth," he writes, in evident despair.

Liberalism's contemporary frustration is neatly symbolized by the magazine's cover, which depicts Woodrow Wilson, Franklin and Eleanor Roosevelt, Harry Truman, John F. Kennedy, and Martin Luther King, all heroes of the magazine's 90 years of existence. Trouble is, these are all historical figures to millions of voters today. Martin Luther King is the most contemporary of the group, and he died in 1968. Has liberalism really had no heroes for thirty-seven years? And why is Lyndon B. Johnson not in this pantheon? He was the most consequential liberal since FDR.

In truth, liberalism has an extensive platform, consisting mainly of defense of ideas and institutions created in the New Deal or the Great Society. Its newer notions include outright secularism and mistrust of any religion as "judgmental;" free choice in abortion and lifestyle, including legally sanctioned homosexual unions; a distaste for projection of U.S. power in world affairs; and a preference for the courts, rather than Congress or legislatures, as a maker of fundamental decisions. These views are shared by a good, solid forty percent of the public. Getting to fifty percent is the hard part.

PADILLA CASE: CHARGE HIM OR LET HIM GO

Jose Padilla is a small-time thug from Chicago who allegedly plotted with Al Qaeda to blow up an apartment building. Fine. Arrest him and prosecute him. But don't hold him forever in a military brig as an "enemy combatant."

That's the word today from a federal judge in South Carolina, whose decision reminded the U.S. government that its power is limited even when it claims there is a national emergency. As long as the federal courts are open, a citizen has the right to be charged there, and not buried alive under military jurisdiction.

"The court finds that the president has no power, neither express nor implied, neither constitutional nor statutory, to hold Petitioner as an enemy combatant," Judge Henry Floyd ruled in Spartanburg.

The government said it would appeal. It will be going against a massive weight of history and precedent. The most notable is the the great case of Ex parte Milligan, decided in 1866, in which the Supreme Court ruled that a civilian in Indiana should not have been tried (and sentenced to hang) by a military tribunal intent on crushing Copperhead machinations.

"No graver question was ever considered by this court, nor one which more nearly concerns the rights of the whole people," wrote the Supreme Court in 1866, "for it is the birthright of every American citizen when charged with crime, to be tried and punished according to law." The law specifies that civilian crimes are to be tried in civilian courts as long as they are functioning, no matter how much of a crisis the government thinks is afoot, the Court ruled.

Padilla's case is different from that of the various Al Qaida suspects being held in Guantanamo Bay because Padilla is a U.S. citizen whose alleged crimes occurred on U.S. soil, where the courts are very much in business. Unless he can be charged with a crime, he should go free.

We all share his birthright of protection under the Constitution, a birthright being steadily chipped away by the demands of the modern national security state. It is well to remember that our country faced no greater threat than the Civil War, and while wartime demands dented and dinged the rights of the citizens, they eventually survived. We should not let the struggle with terrorism do more damage to our rights than did the struggle to save the Union.

WASHINGTON POST BACKS TAX REVENUE OVER JUSTICE

The Washington Post, which in the old days was a thundering voice for justice, has admitted that justice strongly supports the position of the lady in New London, Connecticut, who doesn't want to sell her house to a developer. Yet the Post says justice must give way to the "public goal" of building something fancier on her land, whether she likes it or not.

"Almost all the justice is arrayed on one side, yet the law must come down on the other," the Post said in an editorial.

"Fiat justitia, ruat coelum," ("Let justice be done, though the heavens fall"), as the Romans put it, is obviously not the maxim at the Post. Nor is the old saying, "A man's home is his castle." The rights of private property must give way, the Post says, to the "very public goal" of economic development in a "distressed city."

Washington, DC, actually provided the case (Berman v. Parker ) that turned the corner on private property rights in this country. The Supreme Court ruled fifty years ago that private property could be seized for redevelopment by private parties in an urban-renewal case that originated in the District. Since then, "public use" has been interpreted very broadly to permit all kinds of takings, a philosophy that culminated in the brazen assertion by New London's lawyer that property can be seized and put to a different use as long as the tax revenue is expected to be greater.

"Public use" means a use owned or directly controlled by the public, such as a school or highway. It does not occur whenever someone's property is taken away and given to the highest bidder. That is more akin to highway robbery than than highway development. How would the Post feel if its building was taken away and given to Donald Trump?

OOPS -- WRONG FLAG

In an otherwise commendable report tonight, the usually reliable Brian Williams of NBC-TV gave the clear impression that a flag owned by the U.S. Marine Corps is the same flag depicted in the famous photograph by Joe Rosenthal of the flag-raising on Iwo Jima. In fact, the Marines' flag is the first one planted on the top of Mount Suribachi, which was deemed too small by Marine commanders. They ordered it to be replaced by one that "every son-of-a-bitch on this island" could see as the Marines pressed their bloody offensive to seize control of the patch of volcanic rock. The original flag was taken down and carefully preserved by Marines convinced of its historical value; the second flag, the one in the picture, was blown to bits in the high winds atop the hill.

The NBC report included the fact that Joe Rosenthal is still alive and the remarkable fact that he has the original negative of his picture, surely one of the most valuable photographic artifacts in the world.

The writer's father was a photographic technician on the USS YORKTOWN, which supported the Iwo Jima operation. Dad claimed to recall seeing Rosenthal on board the ship. Dad came home from the war with a copy of the famous photo signed by Rosenthal. It appears to have been shot from a copy with Rosenthal's signature on it. But the picture itself was never on the YORKTOWN since it was actually developed at a base on Guam. I asked Dad how he got the picture. He said he didn't remember. Today it hangs in my study as a reminder of the fact that freedom and liberty don't come cheap.

HIGH SCHOOL DRAMA STIRS UP A VIRGINIA COUNTY

A one-act play about a high shool student who decides he is gay is kicking up a fuss in Loudoun County, Virginia, with the student author complaining of "intolerance" from adults while a state legislator is accusing the schools of "promoting homsexuality."

Presented as part of a drama festival at Stone Bridge High School, the 20-minute play features a popular football player whose friends turn against him when he comes out.

The author, Audrey Jess, said she wrote the play in an effort to expose intolerance among students.

It includes a scene in which two boys appear to be about to kiss when the lights go down, and a concluding speech by the hero in which he asks the audience, "See me as a person, inside. Do you see one just like you? Is that the problem? A little of me hiding in you? Is that the problem?"

The answer, quite generally is "hell, no," but the question is a popular one among gay activists.

The legislator, Republican Delegate Richard Black, denounced the play in an email to his constituents and urged them to complain to the school board. He said the play includes "a scene where two male students kiss and then tell the audience that, 'You can't tell me that there isn't a little bit of me in every one of you'."

That seems to be a fair enough summary, although the local newspaper insisted that the kiss was "in the imagination of the audience" and the school system's PR man described Black's version as an "urban legend."

The school's principal requested some changes in the script but allowed the play to be staged.

Some fifty high-school students showed up to support the author at a school board meeting, raising a question of just how much intolerance there actually is at Stone Bridge High School.

Homosexuality is hardly an unknown subject to high school students, even in Loudoun County, which is partly a fast-growing suburb of Washington and partly a rural community. Delegate Black is way too late to protect his young constituents from hearing about homosexuality.

Still, the play sounds labored, more of an exercise in leftist political correctness than drama. The young author would do well to study "The Crucible," Arthur Miller's drama on the Salem witch trials, which he wrote to shed light on the anti-communist hysteria launched by the House Un-American Activities Committee in the early 1950's. (Senator Joe McCarthy came along a little later.) Miller wrote a great play to make a political point, but didn't shove his point into the audience's face; he let them figure it out for themselves. Compelling drama can be written about the agony of coming out. Taunting the audience is not compelling.

Still, let the show go on. The reaction to it is more educational than the play could ever hope to be.

FIORINA'S DEPARTURE: POWER OF THE PRESS?

Carly Fiorina was deposed as CEO of Hewlett-Packard today, and one can only wonder how much of a factor it was that FORTUNE magazine skewered, disemboweled, and virtually beheaded her in a recent issue.

The FORTUNE article was unmerciful in its analysis of Fiorina's tenure at H-P, especially in her leadership of the company's merger with Compaq Computer. The merger has failed to produce the profitable high-tech conglomerate predicted by Fiorina.

The magazine noted, among other things, that H-P stockholders went from owning 100 percent of a profitable business in printers to owning about 63 percent of it as a result of paying for Compaq with H-P shares, and that H-P's pre-merger projections have totally failed to play out. Profits from the printer business, in which H-P is the leading brand, are used to support the struggling computer and consulting businesses, in which H-P is an also-ran. The article accused her of having no strategic vision that actually makes any sense in real world.

All of these facts and observations have been out there for many months, and one can only wonder why the board waited until now to take action. Perhaps the board was as heavily invested in the pointless merger with Compaq as Fiorina herself. But perhaps the board members hadn't quite put it all together until FORTUNE did it for them.

And perhaps the board members couldn't figure out how to respond to FORTUNE's criticisms by making any move short of dropping Fiorina overboard. Life at the top is dangerous, especially when the press takes a hard look at one's failures.

WARD CHURCHILL AND THE VALUE OF FREE SPEECH

The entertaining farce over the 9/11 "analysis" published by Ward Churchill, a professor of Indian studies at the University of Colorado, illustrates nicely the value of free speech.

Churchill's convoluted reasoning, in which he argues that the U.S. basically had it coming when Al Qaida murdered 3,000 innocent people, clearly relies more on anti-American bias rather than on any type of rational analysis such as might be expected of a college professor. (Mr. Churchill, by the way, does not hold a Ph.D. in any field and is thus less educated than most members of the professoriat.)

In other words, his argument is the product of garden-variety left-wing nut job, various permutations of which description are well known to infest the academic world. So why the big fuss?

It's the syndrome of the crazy aunt in the attic. Everyone knows she is there, but no one listens to her ravings or thinks they have any connection to reality. As long as CU, or any other university, has people like that on the faculty, it can pretend to be achieving "diversity" goals without going to the trouble of actually advancing human knowledge by one whit.

An Indian activist gets a job, students have some easy "A" courses in which they do not have to think, the university has a few Native Americans on the payroll, and everyone is happy.

Until someone actually reads what the man is saying, and all hell breaks loose.

Mr. Churchill has been induced to resign his position as department chairman, which he was going to leave in June anyway, and the university can hope that the controversy will blow over.

But the whole world now knows what a waste of time and money is represented by Ward Churchill, and can only wonder how many more publicly funded college professors are preaching hate instead of thinking, researching, and teaching.