Victor Davis Hanson
He is an excellent writer and essayist -- his columns are well worth reading.
This one
dealing with Ward Churchill is a good example:
The Seven Faces of “Dr.” Churchill
Does Ward Churchill even exist?
Dr., Native American, original artist, serious scholar, combat veteran, highly recruited and sought-after academic, ex-Weatherman mentor: How many — if any — of these seven faces of our real-life Dr. Lao are true?
Professors outside the arts at major research universities are supposed to have Ph.D.s. The phantom Ward Churchill does not. How he was hired, promoted, and tenured without a doctorate is a mystery — the equivalent of a high-school teacher credentialed with an AA degree, or a medical doctor operating without an M.D.
Ward Churchill proclaimed that he is a Native American of various tribal affiliations; he is not. Even his ridiculous costumes, occasional threats, and puerile rants cannot disguise that fact.
He seems to be a pop artist of sorts, but his canvasses are not quite his own either. Those of like political mind have praised his scholarship, but much of what he writes seems derivative, or misrepresents or outright plagiarizes others.
Churchill has spoken of the firsthand trauma of battle service as a combat veteran, both as a paratrooper and as a sniper — among the most hazardous of corps in the United States military. Once again, there is no such evidence that he served in any capacity other than what his official duties in a motor pool and as a projectionist entailed.
No pulling punches there -- everything is documentable and true if you dig around. Dr. Hanson then offers four rules on how to be just like Ward:
Rule 1: Profess to be as far left as possible, understanding that extremism in the service of utopian virtue is no vice.
Rule 2: Among the nerds and dorks, act a little like a Brando, Che, or James Dean, a wild spirit that gives off a spark of danger, who can at a distance titillate Walter Mitty-like admirers and closer up scare off the more sober censors.
Rule 3: Whenever possible, reinvent yourself as anything but a white, straight American male.
Rule 4. Don’t worry about the anti-capitalist’s embarrassing six-figure salary, plush job, lifelong guaranteed employment, and fondness for jet travel and hotels. Just keep acting like an ageless denizen of the Woodstock nation, professing to be a timeless dagger pointed at the heart of money-grubbing square America.
Dang -- so that's how you do it...
Posted by DaveH at March 25, 2005 8:40 PM