Thursday, December 11, 2008

Big Liberals fighting little liberals...I can't look away

Bob Kerrey, the Vietnam veteran and former Nebraska governor and senator known for his acerbic tongue and iconoclastic tendencies, was handed an overwhelming vote of no-confidence on Wednesday afternoon by the senior faculty at the New School, the Greenwich Village university he has run since 2001.
Well, actually, it was only 74 of 333 Full Time faculty. There are 1,733 part time faculty as well. But, this is the mathematically challenged New York Times, and the facts keep getting in the way of the agenda.

The NY Times does, however, suggest that the opposition just might be motivated by political ideology.

Mr. Kerrey has clashed with some professors since the day of his appointment as the New School’s president, with complaints that he lacks a Ph.D. and that his politics — particularly his early support for the Iraq war — were too moderate for the unabashedly liberal campus.
Let's be frank...the reason a small portion of the faculty is so intolerant of Bob Kerrey is because he didn't support "The One." He, instead, threw himself behind Hillary Clinton. Prior to that, he had the audacity to throw support to Joe Lieberman when the DNC propped-up his challenger in the primaries. The final straw was this:

"John McCain is a known quantity," says Bob Kerrey, who thinks Obama will ultimately prevail. "You don't look at John and say, 'Who the heck is he?' He's a veteran, he's a guy who got pretty banged up in Vietnam. He can deal with crisis. There's some uncertainty about Senator Obama."
Kerrey knows the rules...if you don't have something disgustingly nice to say about Obama...you should be genuflecting or prostrating yourself. It's the rules.

The "No-confidence" nonsense was supposed to pressure the trustees of the New School into dispatching Kerrey. Instead, they gave him unanimous support.

Per the NY Times and the NY Newsday, Arjun Appadurai is an Anthropologist Professor who is leading the charge in attempting to get rid of Kerrey. I realize it is only a coincidence, but he is a minority. Also, he was a provost fired by Kerrey a few years ago. He was one of five to get the ax in the last seven years.

Some also have argued Kerrey places the school's budgetary concerns over academic excellence.
Who wants to take a stab at defining the term "academic excellence?"

Oh...OK...I'll do it:

Academic Excellence: The lock step, one-sided pure Liberal view that requires the revision of factual history, promotion of a Liberal agenda driven tripe, and indoctrination of students into the same mindset.