From: AdmrlLocke@aol.com
Sent: Friday, July 14, 2000 2:54 AM
To: undisclosed-recipients: ;
Subject: LibertyNet: GrammNet Thanks; MRC on Jacoby; Chinese Hegemony?
LibertyNet
A Drop of Reason in a Sea of Irrationality
Issue 7/14/00
Dear Friend of Liberty,
Farewell GrammNet, Hello LibertyNet
---------------------------------
I would like to thank all of you who have made GrammNet possible, including
those of you who send me information and those who have provided financial
support. I'd like to thank Tanya Metaksa, formerly of the NRA--many of you
undoubtedly saw her at least once on ABC's "Nightline" with Ted Koppel, where
she waited patiently through irrational antigun tirades by
then-Representative Chuck Schumer of New York--for mentioning GrammNet in her
December 19, 1999 WorldNetDaily Commentary. I most especially thank Bart M.
for archiving GrammNet at his unofficial Phil Gramm web site. Bart has
offered to archive LibertyNet for me as well. Thank you Bart!
I started GrammNet in January of 1995. Impatient to have conservative
Senator Phil Gramm announce his presidential bid, and hoping that an early
announcement would dissuade moderate Senator Bob Dole from launching his own
bid, I started emailing perhaps half a dozen friends, all on America Online,
in support of Gramm.
I have trouble believing that five and a half years have passed since I
optimistically launched GrammNet. Gramm's own campaign errors, combined with
political immaturity on the part of many conservatives and the unethical
tactics of the unholy Dole-Buchanan axis, caused Gramm's campaign to crash
and burn. Despite occasional hopeful queries from GrammNet subscribers, so
far as I know Gramm will not run for president again. I think he found the
process of running for president fundamentally different than running for
office in Texas; I speculate that he tired of each Republican Party interest
group demanding not only that he give it chapter and verse, but also that he
refuse to give each other Republican Party interest group its own chapter and
verse. When I saw the immaturity and blatant cupidity with which even many
conservative Republicans approached the 1996 presidential primary season, I
actually gained even more respect for Senator Gramm than I'd had to start.
It is with some sadness, therefore, that I acknowledge that the time has come
to adopt a name with broader implications than "GrammNet". I'd like to thank
all the GrammNet subscribers who wrote to enthusiastically support changing
the name to "LibertyNet." I believe that the new name (and motto) embody the
spirit with which I have always tried to imbue GrammNet. GrammNet has long
been devoted to defending our God-given, natural rights to life, liberty and
property, and with the adoption of LibertyNet the name now catches up to the
long-held purpose.
Even Some Liberals Defend Jacoby
-------------------------------
In the final issue of GrammNet we learned that the Boston Globe had punished
conservative columnist Jeff Jacoby, allegedly for failing to report that he
had read a factually-inaccurate email floating around the Internet before he
wrote a factually-accurate column on the same subject--the fates of the men
who signed the Declaration of Independence. The Globe suspended Jacoby for
four months without pay, suspiciously placing his reinstatement after the
November elections, and effectively forcing him to resign and get another job
to support his family.
Today in LibertyNet we see that Brent Baker of the conservative Media
Research Center (MRC) has been documenting the unfolding story of reaction to
the Globe's apparent persecution of Jacoby for his conservative ideology.
Not only have conservatives rallied to Jacoby's defense, but so have some
honest liberals. Below you'll find the MRC's email coverage of the story for
the past three days. The coverage includes Jacoby's letter discussing the
incident, and even some comments defending Jacoby made by Bob Hardman, a gay
liberal copy editor at the Globe who had bitterly objected to an earlier
Jacoby column defending the right of Christians to oppose homosexuality.
So it seems that some of today's liberals haven't completely lost the
tolerant spirit which animated much of the liberalism of my youth. You won't
hear the following often on LibertyNet I suspect, but kudos to Mr. Hardman
and the other tolerant liberals in the news media who have stood up for
Jacoby against the Globe's intolerant liberals. Now let's make sure we join
the tolerant liberals in supporting Mr. Jacoby: if you haven't written your
polite and thoughtful request for the Globe to immediately reinstate Jeff
Jacoby, please do so now. You can write the Globe's ombudsman at
ombud@globe.com. You can also reach the Globe by phone at (617) 929-2000 and
fax at (617) 929-2098. Remember to be nice: you catch more flies with sugar
than with vinegar.
Chinese Hegemony?
-----------------
I don't see the Chinese Communists as a threat on a par with the old Soviet
Communists--even with the technological help they've received from Bill
Clinton, the Democratic National Committee and their cronies. Chuck DeVore,
a LibertyNet subscriber and former Reagan administration Pentagon official,
has written to recommend two books which argue otherwise.
In China Attacks, Chuck and co-author Steven W. Mosher offer "a
well-researched fictional account of how China might invade Taiwan," perhaps
doing with regard to China what General Sir John Hackett's The Third World
War: August 1985 (published in 1978) did regarding the Soviet Union. Chuck
received commendations as a US Army officer, and then served as a Special
Assistant for Foreign Affairs to the Assistant Secretary of Defense for
Legislative Affairs from 1986 to 1988. Of his tongue-twisting title he says,
"They say the longer your title is in DC, the less important you are." After
his stint in the Pentagon he worked on the staff of California Congressman
Chris Cox--my number one choice for Bush's vice presidential running
mate--and currently sits on the Republican Central Committee of Orange County.
Chuck recommends another book by Mosher, Hegemon: The Chinese Plan to
Dominate Asia and the Rest of the World. Mosher, a former US Navy officer
and one of the first Americans the Chinese Communists allowed to live in
China in the 1970s, argues in Hegemon that China has always seen itself as
the center of the world, and still plots to become the world's greatest
power, planning ultimately on war with the United States to achieve that
power.
You can find information about both books and both authors at the following
web site (if the link doesn't work for you, use the url immediately below it):
The China Threat
http://businesses.msn.com/chinathreat/
You can also find Hegemon at Amazon.com, where out of more than a million
items it currently ranks in sales at 2,265.
I haven't read the books, so I can't attest to their persuasiveness. I can
say for certain that humanity lived in a dangerous world long before the Cold
War, and developed more dangerous weapons during the Cold War, so that we
actually live in a more dangerous world today than we did a century ago.
China may or may not threaten us the way the Soviet Union did, but we let
down our guard at our peril. Remember that eternal vigilance is the price of
liberty.
Sincerely,
David B. Levenstam, CPA, MT, MA
Bush/Cox in 2000!
---------------------------------------------------------------------------
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the effect that you'd like to subscribe. LibertyNet and GrammNet back issues
available at http://www.geocities.com/CapitolHill/3390/
--------------------------------------------------------------------------
***Media Research Center CyberAlert***
Wednesday July 12, 2000 (Vol. Five; No. 114)
4) FNC's Brit Hume ran an item Tuesday night about the
plight of Jeff Jacoby. During the "Political Grapevine" segment of
the July 11 Special Report with Brit Hume, he announced:
"Conservatives are outraged about the Boston Globe's
suspension of its only conservative columnist, Jeff Jacoby, over a
column he wrote based on material that had first appeared on the
Internet and elsewhere. Jacoby did some research of his own to
check the facts in his July 3rd column about the fates of those
who signed the Declaration of Independence. But because he failed
to inform readers the column was not entirely original, he was
suspended without pay for four months for what the paper called
quote, ‘serious journalistic misconduct.' For the record,
information in this item is not entirely original either."
For the record, nothing in this CyberAlert is entirely
original.
--------------------------------------------------------------------------
***Media Research Center CyberAlert***
Tuesday July 11, 2000 (Vol. Five; No. 113)
Bush's "Contrition" for GOP; Greedy Drug Companies; Mayberrys
Move; Jacoby Suspended
#### Distributed to more than 5,800 recipients by the Media
Research Center, bringing political balance to the media. Visit
the MRC on the Web: http://www.mediaresearch.org. Past CyberAlerts
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Subscribe/unsubscribe information at end of this message. ####
> 5) Even his liberal colleagues are defending Jeff Jacoby. As
you may have heard elsewhere, The Boston Globe late on Friday
suspended conservative columnist Jeff Jacoby for four months
without pay, effectively a push to convince him to resign, for
writing a column about the same topic discussed in an anonymous e-
mail circulating around the Internet, about the fate of the
signers of the Declaration of Independence, without stating that
many of the same stories had been written about in the e-mail.
It would be one thing if he were inspired by a column by a
particular columnist or historian, but this e-mail was unauthored
and therefore unreliable, leading Jacoby to check the tales before
writing his piece. The four month suspension of the lone
conservative voice at the very liberal paper will silence Jacoby,
coincidentally, through election day.
In a statement, Globe publisher Richard Gilman claimed: "We
cannot look the other way if any of our columnists, reporters, or
writers borrow without attribution from the works of others, even
in an attempt to improve upon it. The Globe will not equivocate in
abiding by the highest journalistic standards and ethics."
By this standard, any columnist who repeats commonly
circulated information is guilty of improper behavior. "They are
way overreacting," asserted even liberal media critic Dan Kennedy
of the Boston Phoenix, as quoted by the July 9 Boston Herald.
Over the past couple of years, the Globe had punished
columnists Patricia Smith and Mike Barnicle, but those suspensions
and eventual separations were prompted, respectively, by clear
plagiarism and outright making up of anecdotes and events to add
color to stories about human tragedies.
And what does it say about how clued-in Jacoby's editors are
when they didn't realize beforehand that the stories about the
signers were circulating around the Internet?
The latest: In Tuesday's Washington Post Howard Kurtz
disclosed how many inside the Globe think the suspension was too
tough a punishment. Below is an excerpt from that article as well
as a reprint of Jacoby's reaction and links to other comments on
Jacoby's situation as well as to research on the whole signers
controversy.
One issue I've not seen addressed: What happens to Jacoby's
syndication deal? The Globe is owned by the New York Times Company
and the New York Times News Service syndicated Jacoby's column to
papers around the nation which are paying for it.
-- From the July 11 story by Howard Kurtz:
The story line seems all too familiar: another Boston Globe
columnist punished for borrowing someone else's work.
But this time the offender is an unabashed conservative on a
famously liberal op-ed page, and the penalty so harsh -- for
what many Globe staffers see as a minor infraction -- that some
rushed yesterday to defend a man with whom they rarely agree....
"It strikes me as a terrible overreaction," says Globe business
columnist Charles Stein. "The guy made a mistake. He wasn't trying
to put anything over on anybody. It's very different from the
other incidents the Globe has been involved in, where people were
making stuff up. Maybe a reprimand and a week's suspension would
have been appropriate."
Steve Bailey, the Globe's "Downtown" columnist, calls the
suspension "way over the top. The guy's opinions were never
welcomed in this building from day one. One mistake and he's gone.
It's hard to imagine there wasn't some connection [with his
conservative views]. The guy has created a lot of enemies over the
years. I didn't agree with his point of view all the time, but I
admired his work."....
Says John Fund, a Journal editorial board member who first
published Jacoby's writing a dozen years ago: "It's an open
secret that Jacoby was viewed at best with sneering indifference
and at worst with contempt and hostility in the newsroom." He
calls Jacoby's mistake a "misdemeanor."
Jacoby has been something of a lightning rod. In 1997, when he
criticized Harvard activists who tried to block a discussion
by a Christian group that believes homosexuality is sinful, two
gay copy editors complained, and the Globe's ombudsman -- who had
castigated Jacoby for "homophobic" columns -- called the piece
"offensive."....
END Excerpt
To read the whole Kurtz story, go to:
http://washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/articles/A18822-2000Jul10.html
-- Jacoby's letter to friends distributed on Sunday, which I
feel comfortable reprinting since it was quoted by Kurtz and is
posted in full on at least one conservative Web site:
http://jewishworldreview.com/0700/jacoby.letter.html
The letter:
As you may know, I am undergoing some difficulty.
At 4:15 last Friday, I was suspended without pay for four months
from my job at The Boston Globe, and effectively invited to
resign. I was put on notice that if I do choose to return in four
months, there would have to be a "serious rethink" of the kind of
column I write.
The Globe is accusing me of "serious journalistic misconduct" in
connection with my July 3 column on the signers of the Declaration
of Independence. That theme -- the lives of the signers, and what
happened to them after July 4, 1776 -- has been explored many
times. One bibliography lists works on the subject dating back to
1820. When I sat down to write the column, I had before me a
version written by Paul Harvey, another published by Rush
Limbaugh, and a third sent to me a year ago by a reader.
Using those versions -- which all told much the same story, in
much the same words -- as a starting point, I did my best to
verify the information. I checked encyclopedias of American
history, consulted books I own on the Revolutionary War, and
visited web sites that provide biographical material on the
founders. I made a special point of checking sites that debunk
"urban legends" and other Internet myths, since I knew that at
least some of what is said about the signers is not historically
accurate.
I knew, too, that an anonymous e-mail on the signers of the
Declaration had been making the rounds. In fact, when I e-mailed
my column to a group of friends, fans, and family members on the
evening of July 2, I noted that what I was sending was NOT a
rewrite of that e-mail, which I knew to contain errors. Of course,
it too told approximately the same story, using approximately the
same language, as all the other versions.
Since I was relating lore that has been related over and over, and
since all of the sources I relied on had relied in turn on even
earlier recitations, I assumed that all the material in my column
was in the public domain. It never occurred to me to include a
line pointing out that I was far from the first to write about the
fates of the Declaration's signers. Had I added such a line, Globe
officials tell me, none of this would be happening.
On Monday, July 3, I asked if I could repair the oversight by
adding a correction to my next column. Permission to do so was
denied. Instead, an Editor's Note pointing out that "the structure
and concept for [my] column were not entirely original" appeared
on the op-ed page on Thursday, July 6. The next morning, I was
given an opportunity to explain how the column had been written. A
few hours later, I was suspended.
I joined the Globe as an op-ed columnist in February 1994. (The
first line of my first column was: "So what's a nice conservative
like me doing in a newspaper like this?") In the six and a half
years since, I have produced close to 600 columns. I invite anyone
to judge my integrity and my journalistic ethics on the basis of
the work that I have done for the Globe. To my knowledge, the
paper has never had any reason to question my work, or to doubt
that I hold myself to the highest standards when writing for
publication. Six years' worth of superlative evaluations of me are
on file in the Globe's personnel records. I think it is fair to
say that I have been a credit to The Boston Globe and have
improved the paper's reputation.
What is happening now is a nightmare.
In accusing me of "serious journalistic misconduct," the Globe is
poisoning the good name I have spent years building up. This
suspension is a brutal overreaction to something that even the
Globe will not call plagiarism and doesn't characterize as a
willful violation.
No one deserves to lose his income for a third of a year because a
column lacked a sentence that might have underscored how common
the column's theme was. I am deeply concerned about my family's
future, of course. And I am deeply concerned about my reputation.
It is a great privilege to write a column for a prominent daily
newspaper. Over the past six years I often expressed my gratitude
to The Boston Globe -- both publicly and privately -- for giving
me such a wonderful pulpit. And I endeavored, twice each week, to
make good on that gratitude by writing a column of which the Globe
could be proud.
I thought my future at the paper was limitless. It has been shocking
and traumatic to discover how wrong I was.
END Reprint
For the latest on all of this, go to Jim Romanescu's
MediaNews: http://www.poynter.org/medianews/
For reaction: http://www.poynter.org/medianews/extra6.htm
For Timothy Noah's exploration of the origins of the stories
and their accuracy, go to:
http://slate.msn.com/code/chatterbox/chatterbox.asp?Show=7/7/00&idMessage=5636
Oh, and the Jacoby column in question is still online at the
Globe. It's been de-listed, but this direct address still worked
as of Monday night:
http://www.boston.com/dailyglobe2/185/oped/56_great_risk_takers+.shtml
-- Brent Baker
--------------------------------------------------------------------------
***Media Research Center CyberAlert***
Thursday July 13, 2000 (Vol. Five; No. 115)
Roth's Shift Left Heralded; DNA Proved Guilt But ABC AWOL; Jacoby
Support & Double Standards
> 5) Outrage over the Boston Globe's suspension for four
months, without pay, of Jeff Jacoby, its only conservative
columnist, is moving beyond just conservatives to mainstream and
even liberal journalists.
Wednesday brought not only a column in the New York Post, but
also condemnation by a Fortune magazine reporter who suggested
that by the Globe's standard "the entire staffs of news magazines
might have to be asked to resign," as well as links on Jim
Romenesko's MediaNews site (http://www.poynter.org/medianews/) to
a petition being circulated by a Globe staffer requesting that the
suspension be lifted and to a Boston Phoenix piece by Dan Kennedy
which revealed:
* "Two acquaintances of [editorial page editor Renee] Loth
told the Phoenix, on condition of anonymity, that Loth has made no
secret of her distaste for Jacoby's work."
* "Perhaps the most unlikely internal critic is Bob Hardman, a
copy editor for the editorial and op-ed pages. Hardman is a gay
man who has bitterly protested Jacoby's occasional descents into
homophobia..."
* "Overall, the guy is a major asset. Yet his reward, say some
sources, has been to be treated like a pariah by those who oppose
his politics."
* "The punishment handed out to Jacoby doesn't come close to
squaring with other examples," including a reporter who was
suspended for just one week for plagiarism in a story about
plagiarism.
For the background on this situation -- what Jacoby wrote and
the Globe's rationale for its reaction -- go to:
http://www.mediaresearch.org/news/cyberalert/2000/cyb20000711.html#5
-- The July 12 New York Post featured a column by Eric Fettman
headlined, "Too Good for the Globe? Liberal Beantown Rag Nukes its
Token Righty." To read this piece, go to:
http://www.nypostonline.com/postopinion/opedcolumnists/7622.htm
-- Brit Hume raised Jacoby's plight as the first subject
Wednesday night on his 6pm ET, 9pm PT Special Report with Brit
Hume show on FNC. Morton Kondracke of Roll Call declared: "The
punishment does not fit the crime."
Jeff Birnbaum of Fortune magazine noted how Jacoby was
suspended for failing to alert readers to how his column was about
the same subject and relayed some of the same anecdotes as an e-
mail circulating about what happened to the signers of the
Declaration of Independence. By that standard, Birnbaum suggested:
"I think the entire staffs of news magazines might have to be
asked to resign if this were so big an offense. I think he was
clearly over-punished for this mistake."
The Weekly Standard's Fred Barnes saw an ideological reason
behind the Globe's move: "I think Jeff Jacoby makes the Globe
uncomfortable because he's not just a conservative columnist. He
is a loud, noisy, conservative columnist who attacks feminists,
who attacks the gay rights movement and so on and makes them very
uncomfortable. And that had to be a factor. Not just that he's a
conservative but what kind of conservative he is."
Hume added: "This is a newspaper editorial page of uncommon
orthodoxy in the sense that he is the only conservative voice that
is on the staff there."
-- Jim Romenesko's MediaNews relayed the text of a memo sent
to Globe staffers by Globe tech writer Hiawatha Bray:
To: BG Editorial
Subject: In the matter of Jeff Jacoby
I'm planning to send a letter to our publisher asking him to
reconsider Mr. Jacoby's suspension. Would you be interested in
signing it? Here's the text:
"Dear Mr. Gilman,
We write to express our concern about the penalty meted out to
Jeff Jacoby because of his July 3 column. It seems to us that a
four-month suspension without pay is a punishment far out of
proportion to Mr. Jacoby's error. He has not been accused of
plagiarism, or any other deliberate breach of journalistic ethics.
"Instead, he stands accused of an error of judgment, failing to
declare that his column was inspired by the work of others.
"A Globe columnist should avoid any appearance of impropriety,
especially in light of the unfortunate events of two years ago. We
can understand the impulse to crack down swiftly and sternly, in
order to avoid a repetition of that regrettable affair. Still, it
seems to us that the penalty against Mr. Jacoby in this case far
exceeds the demands of justice. We respectfully request that you
reconsider."
Care to sign? Please visit my desk in the Business News
department...the one with the Apple iMac half-buried in papers.
Thanks. Hiawatha Bray
END Reprint
-- Thursday's weekly Boston Phoenix features a lengthy piece
by liberal media writer Dan Kennedy, who handles a section called
"Don't Quote Me," headlined, "Cruel and unusual: Globe columnist
Jeff Jacoby paid far too high a price for an unintentional lapse
of judgment."
Here are some excerpts, picking up with a reference to
editorial page editor Renee Loth who inherited Jacoby's column
from her predecessor, H.D.S. Greenway, who had hired him in 1994:
To Loth, though, the principles are far from murky. "It was a
violation of the Globe's policy on attribution. It's very clear,"
she says, adding that she had the final call after conferring with
[Globe Publisher Richard] Gilman; that she considered the case on
its own merits without regard to Smith and Barnicle; and that
there is no truth to the accusation being spread by some critics
that Jacoby was singled out because he is the op-ed page's only
conservative. In fact, she says she'll take steps to ensure that
conservative voices are heard from in Jacoby's absence. Jacoby
says Loth made it clear that she wants him to leave. Loth's
response: "It's not designed to get him to resign." Jacoby also
claims that Loth told him that if he chooses to return, he'll have
to change the focus of his column. Loth's response: "That was a
private meeting, and I'm not going to talk about it."
Two acquaintances of Loth told the Phoenix, on condition of
anonymity, that Loth has made no secret of her distaste for
Jacoby's work. Loth's response: "I don't know what they're talking
about."....
Yet the brutal punishment Jacoby received has sparked an outcry --
not just from conservative outsiders such as Rush Limbaugh, Matt
Drudge, and David Horowitz (and, locally, WBZ's David Brudnoy and
civil-liberties lawyers Harvey Silverglate and Chester Darling),
but from a number of Globe insiders as well, including business
columnists Steve Bailey, Charles Stein, and David Warsh, and
sports-media columnist Howard Manly.
Perhaps the most unlikely internal critic is Bob Hardman, a copy
editor for the editorial and op-ed pages. Hardman is a gay man who
has bitterly protested Jacoby's occasional descents into
homophobia, which he charges have been marked by "at least
carelessness and sometimes ill will." But he says of Jacoby's
four-month suspension: "In this particular case, I want to say
that it's extremely harsh, and I agree with those who say it's
disproportionate. I believe that in a more collegial and
cooperative environment this could not have happened, or would not
have happened."....
Loth and Gilman also overlook the fact that Jacoby has been good
for the Globe. His loathsome anti-gay columns aside, Jacoby has,
for six and a half years, ably provided the conservative voice
the liberal Globe had long needed. His twice-weekly column is well
researched and well written, one of the better reads on an often
dreary page -- and never mind that I rarely agree with him. Just
last year he won the first $10,000 Eric Breindel Award in Opinion
Journalism, named after a deceased editor at the New York Post.
Jacoby is sometimes late to weigh in on an issue, and he
occasionally does little more than parrot what other conservative
pundits have already said. But, overall, the guy is a major asset.
Yet his reward, say some sources, has been to be treated like a
pariah by those who oppose his politics. "I've always been
saddened by the fact that he's ostracized at the paper," says
Living/Arts columnist Alex Beam. "I just feel that the Globe has
always held Jeff at a big distance and treated him differently,
certainly as compared with our more socially acceptable
columnists."....
The punishment handed out to Jacoby doesn't come close to squaring
with other examples. In April, the Globe removed Anthony Flint as
the City Hall bureau chief and transferred him to the business
section after he was found to have solicited letters of
recommendation for a Harvard fellowship from Mayor Tom Menino and
from developers he covered. Flint didn't miss a paycheck, and this
fall he's going to Harvard. In 1996, cartoonist Paul Szep was
suspended for just two weeks without pay for blatantly copying two
illustrations, one of them a caricature of Texas senator Phil
Gramm that had been on the cover of Mother Jones. The suspension
was confidential, and would not have come to light had someone not
dropped a dime to the Phoenix. ("I wasn't privy to the Szep
thing," Loth says.) And for those who think Times Company values
[NY Times owns Boston Globe] may finally have arrived at 135
Morrissey Boulevard [Globe building], keep in mind that, in 1991,
New York Times reporter Fox Butterfield was suspended for just one
week after ripping off several paragraphs from a Globe story about
(I'm not making this up) plagiarism. The fact that Butterfield
went on to have a great career proves that giving someone a second
chance can be the right thing to do. Yes, the Globe has
occasionally axed people for plagiarism, but the point is that the
paper has been consistently inconsistent. In any case, not even
Loth accuses Jacoby of anything that serious....
END Excerpt
To read Kennedy's entire story and to see a photo of Jacoby:
http://www.bostonphoenix.com/archive/features/00/07/13/DON_T_QUOTE_ME.html
If only the Globe held columnist Tom Oliphant to the same
standard. He'd be in permanent suspension for appropriating every
thought of Ted Kennedy. -- Brent Baker