SMU Tenured Radicals to Bush: Drop Dead!

Wouldn't you know it?

Members of the Southern Methodist University faculty again raised concerns that the building of the George W. Bush presidential library on campus might damage the school's reputation, said a participant at a closed-door meeting on Wednesday.

Of course the faculty has "concerns" which is academese and Washingtonspeak for "we feel threatened by stuff we don't like." And of course, like the he-persons they are, the "concerned" profs would only discuss their "concerns" away from prying eyes. Academics like to do really bad, discriminatory stuff, but they don't like witnesses, which makes them a little like gang members in some respects.

You can see the game here. The lefty profs are afraid that having something that could conceivably attract the kind of conservative scholars they and their ilk have successfully kept off American college campuses since at least the 1970s.

Let's go on to parse the clever professorial obfuscations in this Washington Post article. (Note: Registration may be required.) It will be fun as well as instructive. Back to the faculty meeting:

"We're worried about a group of people on campus with a lot of money and a lot of power who aren't concerned for our values as an academy," Dennis Foster, a professor of English and a faculty senate member said, according to a participant in the meeting who asked not to be identified.

Translation: "We don't want any potential conservatives anywhere near us who might muck up our ability to indoctrinate the next generation of students to hate Amerikkka and love the New Socialist World Order. " Significantly, the stoolie who reported this wants to remain anonymous. One could infer that he/she is either A. a closet conservative afraid of being found out; or B. an uncomfortable untenured faculty member who wants to get this out to the public without risking his or her tenure track.

Turner [the school president] responded by saying that because the institute will be governed by a separate board, any controversy would not reflect poorly on the university.

"The tail will not wag the dog," he said, according to the participant.

Translation: "You're free to piss on these right-wing library jerks and explain to the public that their asininity has nothing to do with our wonderful school. They can't control us. We'll show them." (Alternate translation: "Everything I'm telling you is merely posturing so you'll get off my case. This is already a done deal. I'm actually supporting it but I'm covering my ass because I like what I'm being paid. Leave me alone.")

In the meeting Wednesday, many faculty members expressed concerns that the Bush institute would become nothing more than a conservative think tank working to advance the ideologies and policies of the Bush administration.

Translation: "Concerns" are the phony description for the verbiage that follows that word above. The faculty is really saying: "We don't want any stinking conservatives, capitalists, or Bush administration figures advancing the cause of America and spoiling our ability to transform this campus into yet another propaganda island of Marxist thought. This threatens us because it may expose our own lack of intellectual rigor. There shall be no other ideologies beside our own."

The controversy began in November when two faculty members wrote in the school newspaper criticizing the absence of university-wide discussion about the library. The editorial also questioned the ethics of pursuing a presidential library "regardless of an administration's record and its consequences," a reference to the war in Iraq.

Translation: There never was any controversy, as any university hierarchy worth its salt (and certainly its trustees) would love to have a presidential library on campus, not to mention all the money and attention it brings. The only controversy here was the one raised by predictably leftist, America-hating, terrorist-loving tenured radical professors whose fascistic tendencies cannot risk the location of any ideological competition nearby. Our radical professors were also irritated that the "absence of university-wide discussion" didn't allow them time to employ predictably Stalinist delaying tactics which would permit them to build angry public protests to a fever pitch, creating the intense media pressure needed to force the university administration to back off and capitulate to the radicals' unreasonable demands.

As we've said before in HazZzMat, Chairman Mao did actually have one genuinely good idea. He sent clowns like these profs to the rice paddies for awhile to learn a little bit about the world as it really exists.

Absent that kind of reality therapy, these SMU profs obviously prefer to live in their comfy Marxist fantasyland without scrutiny or oversight. But don't imagine for a moment that they'd allow anyone else, including the President, to enjoy similar privileges.