“…You can smell it,” wrote Tennessee Williams, “It smells like death.” In the case of radical conservative pundits, talk show hosts, and cable news talking heads, it also smells like desperation and fear.
Fear that they are losing their powerful ideological grip on American political culture and desperation as the gravy train they’ve been traveling on for too long begins to dry up.
As their fear and desperation increases, so do their lies.
Local conservative talker Steve Gill got caught by the Sumner County Democrats lying about a Vol State class. Is it right that his listeners called the college to harass a professor based on Gill’s lies? No, it’s irresponsible broadcasting.
During one of his shows last week, Steve Gill took aim at a Vol State class that encougrages meaningful community service with instruction, a widely recognized and respected concept called “service-learning” Listen:
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…98% of what he and his caller say are lies. The class isn’t connected to http://serve.gov/, nor is it connected to ACORN, nor does it require students to dig ditches. The 2% that is not a lie? Jennifer Pitts teaches at Vol State! Not surprisingly, Volunteer State has been flooded with calls denouncing the “liberal professor” and her “crony of the Democratic party” boss.
If you have a free moment, please call 230-3501 or write Warren.Nichols@volstate.edu to express your support for their mission and to express your disapproval for the hatred and lies of Steve Gill.
And Tom Kovach is spreading the lie that started at Breitbart.tv and quickly spread through the right-wing echo chamber that “community organizers” were “praying” to Obama. Tom wants you to be very afraid. But Tom is lying. He is desperate. An afraid.
And Fox News is lying about another Obama Admin official. This time it’s that Kevin Jennings of the Dept. of Education “cover[ed] up statutory rape” in Massachusetts and wants to “turn” your child gay. Hannity is after Mr. Jennings as is minions at the Washington Times. But they are also lying.
Mendacity. It’s oozing out of the pores of radical right-wing commentators everywhere.
I noticed that you claim that I was “spreading lies”. However, you did not include a link to my column — which included a video of the ceremony — so that viewers could decide for themselves whether those at the ceremony were actually praying to Obama. They were.
“The trouble with our liberal friends is not that they are ignorant. The trouble is that they know so much that isn’t so.” — Ronald Reagan
One of the best parts of my college education was doing community service. It was beneficial to me, my classmates, my college and my community.
I think Obama’s emphasis on this has been one of his greatest accomplishments, and I am very sad to see people like Steve Gill try to turn this into something nefarious. It speaks volumes about him and his ilk that he would distort something so precious as the desire to help others, and the desire to teach our youth to help others.
Ryan:
You are incorrect in your assertion that “Serve.org is affiliated with ACORN, and this professor is requiring the students to do community service through the organization.” The professor is certainly NOT requiring students to do service “through the organization.” There is NO relationship between the college or the ACORN or Serve.gov. Serve.gov picked up the story AFTER the project was complete. Vol State, and the department in question, had been doing community service long before anyone had heard of Barack Obama. The course complied with both internal policies as well as accepted best practices in service learning. It is also not true that the instructor “required” service learning -students were given the option of doing a research project instead. Steve Gill was amazingly uninformed when he made his comments, and would have been easily informed has he picked up the phone and made a call to the college.
To sum up:
1) Was not required
2) No relation to ACORN, Serve.gov, etc.
3) Did not involve “digging ditches”
4) Had clear educational value directly relevant to the course being taught.
Gill either lied or was ignorant. Either way his attack on the college was wrong.
Mary, there are a lot of people who don’t agree with the direction our country is headed.
We aren’t all lying, and bunching all conservatives into a category of liar and fear monger is very rude.
Serve.org is affiliated with ACORN, and this professor is requiring the students to do community service through the organization… what part of that is a lie?
I guess you think ACORN is a wonderful organization, that can do no wrong, correct? I guess you think college students should have to do communtiy service of the professor’s choice? Not go serve their church.. or their organization of choice, but of the professor’s choice. That’s good for the community, huh?
Just so we understand what conservatives aren’t lying about..
Government run health care will cost us in quality of care, and it will cause our health care system to be worse.. NOT better. That isn’t a lie.
President Obama ran on a platform of pulling out of the war in Iraq.. that was a lie. He hasn’t even come close to pulling out, and his timetable is the same as President Bush’s timetable. That isn’t a lie.
President Obama’s approval rating is below 50%, now.. is 50% of the nation liars? Just because they don’t agree with you?
I don’t understand how you can call so many people liars.. but not justify those accusations with any kind of proof.