from the Rocky Mountain News (still alive & kicking)
Former Gov. Bill Owens on Friday compared onetime CU professor Ward Churchill to a famous movie maker – and it wasn’t a compliment.
“In retirement, he’s starting to look a lot like Michael Moore,” Owens said of the overweight and frumpy director of Bowling for Columbine and Fahrenheit 9/11.
Ownes had some great zingers:
“Ward Churchill is a plagiarist and a fraud and, regrettably, we continue to pay for his deception.”
…
“Unfortunately for David Lane, his client had a clear pattern of lying for virtually his entire academic career. That’s why he was fired.“I believe the jury will reject Churchill’s (claims.)”
And Ward Churchill continued with his normal dickiness, matched by his attorney:
For his part Friday, Churchill refused to shake Owens’ hand.
So Owens took a verbal jab: “I said, ‘Come on, you’re a big guy.’
Lane said later: “I hope the governor’s feelings weren’t too hurt.”
Let’s close out with the root issue we face with bozo the clown:
A faculty committee investigated, and the regents fired him, citing alleged fabrications, plagiarism and lies about historical facts in his academic work.
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If Owens calls him a fraud, liar, plagiarist, etc.? It was stupid for Owens to offer his hand after such bitchery.
were both senators and on equal footing.
Owens ran the state, the boss of the boss of the boss of the — about eight levels above Churchill, whose witch-hunt he championed in an attempt to get him fired because he said some things Owens found distasteful.
I’m not defending Churchill and what ultimately emerged about his character, but to compare their relationship with two powerful opponents, either of whom could have become president — that’s intellectually dishonest and offensive.
…it never hurts to show some class. Owens understands that, Churchill doesn’t.
As to the initial witch hunt, I agree that professors should not be put in fear of their job over what they say. But I do think it’s fine for people to state that they find their statements repugnant.
But when out of this we discovered what a fraud Churchill was, then the University had to let him go. And on that point, and that point only, I think Owens’ characterization of him was spot on.
…then you and decorum are not well acquainted.
First Michael Moore, then Al Gore, now Ward Churchill. Considering when you think of “fat blowhard asshole,” several of the first people who come to mind are Republicans, why is fatness something they want to keep returning to?
And that’s aside from the whole “destroying someone’s livelihood and reputation over a dumb political statement they made once,” which is also not strictly speaking “classy.”
Indeed indeed. If Owens wanted to blast Churchill for being overweight and “frumpy” (the Rocky’s characterization), he could as easily have compared him to Dick Wadhams or Rush Limbaugh. Or Winston Churchill, for that matter. But where’s the fun in that?
…when a faculty review found that virtually everything he had done & published was a total fraud. The dumb political statement led to the review – but if he had been an actual scholar it also would have ended there.
Missed your commentary the last week or so.
…trading bon mots with Bubba and Putin, et al. But, overall, it was tiresome.
and everyone in such sour moods. They really ought to move it to a nice tropical island, if they’re going to keep meeting in January.
Both men are has been liars.
I probably wouldn’t touch either one…
make that GB (agreeing with, not = brain fart, that’s all me)
Way back when, the faculty review committee recommended AGAINST hiring Churchill and certainly did not think it was a good idea to offer him tenure. The faculty in his field knew from the beginning that his scholarship was not even satisfactory.
But the administration at the time decided to over-rule this faculty advice and hired him anyway.
There is a lesson in this saga. I know it is naive of me to think something might be learned from this, but maybe … ?