I'm not talking about defending him on those grounds, but rather, pointing out that this inquiry into him would never have taken place without the right-wing smear campaign.  That outweights ultimately his scholarly sins, which are immense and inexcusable.  It's uncomfortable and difficult to do because we essentially have to cop-out and say, "Yeah, what you say about his scholarship IS true, but you never would have discovered it in the first place if..."  But the forest is ultimately that right-wing apparatus and the intimidation and chilling effects it will likely now exert (even more so if the left just remains completely silent on the Churchill matter rather than simultaneously condemn his crap scholarship AND the conditoins under which the committee was formed.) <div>On 6/26/06, Michael J. Smith <<a href="mailto:mjs@smithbowen.net" target="_blank" onclick="return top.js.OpenExtLink(window,event,this)">mjs@smithbowen.net </a>> wrote:<blockquote class="gmail_quote" style="border-left: 1px solid rgb(204, 204, 204); margin: 0pt 0pt 0pt 0.8ex; padding-left: 1ex;"> > On Jun 27, 2006, at 10:08 AM, Auguste Blanqui wrote: > > > Ugh, not to revive last week's discussion, but I don't think we could > > have asked for a worst "first major academic freedom case" than one > > requiring us to defend the likes of Churchill... Does anybody need to defend Churchill? His own institution, for better or worse, gave him tenure. Now they want to revoke it. The only relevant question is why they changed their minds, and the answer is plain to the meanest intellect. It's not because they found something out about him that they didn't already know. -- --Michael J. Smith --<a href="mailto:mjs@smithbowen.net" target="_blank" onclick="return top.js.OpenExtLink(window,event,this)"> mjs@smithbowen.net</a> <a href="http://stopmebeforeivoteagain.org" target="_blank" onclick="return top.js.OpenExtLink(window,event,this)">http://stopmebeforeivoteagain.org</a> ___________________________________ <a href="http://mailman.lbo-talk.org/mailman/listinfo/lbo-talk" target="_blank" onclick="return top.js.OpenExtLink(window,event,this)">http://mailman.lbo-talk.org/mailman/listinfo/lbo-talk </a> </blockquote></div>