Smear
From Bwtm
Alas, this is the classic course a smear campaign takes. A group throws up accusations that, when subjected to scrutiny, prove to be full of holes. Supporters of the attack campaign say that, well, those charges may not pan out, but there must be something here. Let's just keep attacking.
smear campaign. Explain to me my transgressions that I can improve. Interact with me so that I can understand your attacks on me. How does isolating me make the company stronger? What are you gaining by your behavior?
scorched earth policy.
Who are you fighting? What will you have when the war is over?
Is it any wonder that Mr. X is ‘fighting’ for his company? The mentality of dishonesty, secrecy, back stabbing, smut and ignorance is typical of the neo-con fascist dysfunctional existence. Why are you fighting? What are you fighting? What ever happened to cooperation, team work, working together?
Hillary Bashing (and Bill)
Falwell Says Faithful Fear Clinton More Than Devil
The evangelical leader tells a conference that the New York senator will mobilize his base like no one else if she runs for president.
September 24, 2006 WASHINGTON — Nothing will motivate conservative evangelical Christians to vote Republican in the 2008 presidential election more than a Democratic nominee named Hillary Rodham Clinton — not even a run by the devil himself.
That was the sentiment expressed by the Rev. Jerry Falwell, the longtime evangelical icon and founder of the once-powerful Moral Majority, during private remarks Friday to church pastors and activists as part of the Values Voter Summit hosted this weekend by the country's leading Christian conservatives.
A recording of Falwell's comments was obtained by The Times, and his remarks were confirmed by eyewitnesses.
"I certainly hope that Hillary is the candidate," Falwell said, according to the recording. "She has $300 million so far. But I hope she's the candidate. Because nothing will energize my [constituency] like Hillary Clinton."
Cheers and laughter filled the room as Falwell continued: "If Lucifer ran, he wouldn't."
At that moment in the recording, Falwell's voice is drowned out by hoots of approval. But two in attendance, including a Falwell staff member, confirmed that Falwell said that even Lucifer, the fallen angel synonymous with Satan in Christian theology, would not mobilize his followers as much as the New York senator and former first lady would.
One critic who has been observing the conference said Saturday that Falwell's words offered a rare glimpse into how religious conservative leaders were planning to inflame opposition to the Democrats with below-the-radar messages that are often more scorching than the ones showing up in public.
"He was calling Hillary Clinton a demonic figure and openly arguing that God is a Republican," said the Rev. Barry W. Lynn, executive director of the advocacy group Americans United for Separation of Church and State. "It's hard to know whether people thought he was joking or serious, but once you start using religious imagery and invoking a politician in this way, it's not funny. A lot of people who listen to him do think that she's a dark force of evil in America."
Such controversy is nothing new for Falwell, who once described Islam's prophet Muhammad as a terrorist and said that abortion providers, feminists, gays and lesbians were to blame for the 9/11 attacks.
An aide to Falwell said Saturday that the Lucifer reference was an "off the cuff" comment and that Falwell "had no intentions of demonizing her."
Smears of liberals
In a Free Society, Campaigns Matter: The GOP Must Give Voters a Clear Choice
by Newt Gingrich Posted Oct 16, 2006 The elite media are giddy with anti-Republican euphoria. Their coverage has not been this biased against Republicans in three decades.
The Democrats are excited and convinced they will win a big victory.
Republicans are worried, demoralized and confused. I have been in eight states recently and the mood is similar everywhere.
Yet, an election is a choice between two futures. By simply comparing the positions of each party based upon historic facts, the choice of the desired future will become clear to the majority of the American people. And that choice is neither one in which Democrats celebrate nor Republicans concede.
Here is the choice for 2006.
A Vital Moment for America: Who Is Historically Right, and Who Is Historically Wrong?
Republicans should enter these closing weeks of the election with clarity, conviction and confidence. The GOP owes it to the American people to give them an inspiring choice. When you are right, you have confidence.
The theme is simple: We can't go back to the failed policies of the past.
- Republicans are right on defeating terrorism, and the left is wrong in wanting to run and hide from danger and take up the disastrous policies of appeasement and weakness that defined the Carter Administration. Americans should never again face a 444-day hostage crisis in Iran or an energy policy which leads to gasoline rationing. If every American understood the consequences of losing to the terrorists, the Democrats would lose seats this November.
- Republicans are right on cutting taxes and growing a better economy, and the left is wrong in their desire to raise taxes, enlarge command-and-control bureaucracies and return to their failed economic policies, which during the Carter Administration pushed America into the deepest recession since the Great Depression. It was a Democrat Congress and a Democrat administration that presided over interest rates of 22 percent and inflation at 13 percent, and it was a Democrat President who gave a speech in which he lectured the American people to expect less and to lower their standards. If every American knew that Congressman Charlie Rangel (N.Y.), the Democrat choice to head the Ways and Means Committee, had promised to raise their taxes, the Democrats would lose seats this fall.
- Republicans are right to favor traditional American conservative social values, and the left is completely wrong to put San Francisco left-wing values third in line to be President by electing Nancy Pelosi (Calif.) to speaker of the House. If every American knew the Pelosi voting record, the Democrats would lose seats this fall.
Republicans can turn this around, but they must make the case.
http://www.humanevents.com/winningthefuture.php?id=17562
Newt Gingrich's "traditional American conservative social values":
Newt Gingrich argued yesterday that Republicans should remind the electorate that "Republicans are right to favor traditional American conservative social values, and the left is completely wrong to put San Francisco left-wing values third in line to be President by electing Nancy Pelosi (Calif.) to speaker of the House."
Nancy Pelosi's "San Francisco left-wing values":
- "Upon graduation in 1962, she married Georgetown University graduate Paul Pelosi." "Pelosi and her husband, Paul Pelosi, a native of San Francisco, have five children: Nancy Corinne, Christine, Jacqueline, Paul and Alexandra, and five grandchildren."
Newt Gingrich's "traditional American conservative social values":
- In 1981, Newt dumped his first wife, Jackie Battley, for Marianne, wife number 2, while Jackie was in the hospital undergoing cancer treatment. Marianne and Newt divorced in December, 1999 after Marianne found out about Newt's long-running affair with Callista Bisek, his one-time congressional aide. Gingrich asked Marianne for the divorce by phoning her on Mother's Day, 1999. [Source: New York Post, July 18, 2000, Newt's Ex Wife Aiming to Pen Book by Bill Sanderson, available on lexis]. Newt (57) and Callista (34) were married in a private ceremony in a hotel courtyard in Alexandria, Va. in August, 2000. . . .
- "He famously visited Jackie in the hospital where she was recovering from surgery for uterine cancer to discuss details of the divorce. He later resisted paying alimony and child support for his two daughters, causing a church to take up a collection. For all of his talk of religious faith and the importance of God, Gingrich left his congregation over the pastor's criticism of his divorce."
The consistency in reasoning is at least impressive. Those who evaded military service during wars they cheered on are brave, courageous, resolute warriors. Those who fought for their country in combat are cowards and appeasers.
Those who repeatedly dump their wives for new and better versions, and run around engaging in the sleaziest and most unrestrained sexual behavior, are stalwart defenders of traditional American and Christian values. Those who stay married to their original spouse for their entire lives and raise a family together are godless, radical heathens who represent "San Francisco values" and seek to undermine the country's moral fiber and Christian traditions.
http://glenngreenwald.blogspot.com/2006/10/todays-tour-around-mind-of-bush.html
How the Myth of Spat on Vets Holds Back the Anti-War Movement
Q: In the recent days the British general responsible for British troops in Iraq has make remarkably strong calls for British troops to be removed from Iraq. So it’s pretty timely to have a discussion like this, since I’m finding that there are quite a few students who are opposed to the US occupation of Iraq, but are afraid to "go against" the soldiers, many of whom are friends or relatives. First thing, though, is, for the sake of those who haven’t read your book The Spitting Image, maybe you could give a quick intro to the key arguments of the book.
Lembcke: I got interested in this topic in the runup to the Persian Gulf War in 90–91. There were students who were opposed to the war, but afraid to speak out because of what they had heard about the antiwar movement and veterans during the Vietnam War era. These stories of "spat upon" vets were beginning to circulate in the news and students on campuses were picking up on these stories. I had never heard these stories before. So I got interested in where they were coming from, how long they had been told, who was telling them and so forth.
One thing led to another and I kept looking back in the historical records, when people were actually coming home from Vietnam and I found out that no, there was no record. Not only was there no record of people spat on, but none of anyone claiming that they were spat on. So then I got interested in the stories as a form of myth and found out that in other times and other places, especially Germany after WWI, soldiers came home and told stories of feeling rejected by people and particularly stories of being spat on.
Like with the case of the Vietnam stories many of the "spitters" were young girls and knowing that these things happened at another time and place supposedly, I found out about a Freudian psychologist who wrote about male fantasies and treated these stories as fantasies, expressions of the subconscious, men who felt they’d lost manhood in the war. When I told a psychologist friend of mine in women's studies, she asked me who the spitters were…she too thought it was likely a myth since the spitters were women, an expression of loss of manhood.
Looking a little further, I found that French soldiers returning from Indochina after defeat at Dien Bien Phu also told stories of being treated badly, rejected by women, attacked by women on the streets, having to take their uniforms off before going in public, being ashamed of their military service. These were very similar to stories circulating in the 1980’s in the US. The time gap between the end of the Vietnam War and when the stories began to be told is also a sign that there is something of an element of myth or legend. That’s the key part of the book, not whether or not such things, since it’s hard to refute what isn’t documented, ever happened, as much as the mythical element.
And of course we see how the rise of the myth had an effect on support for the war in Iraq.
Q: And what is the link that you see?
Lembcke: In a nutshell, most people remember there was pretty widespread opposition to the US going into Iraq with huge demos in February and March of 2003. And then there were a good number of "support the troops" rallies that tapped into the popular sentiment that something bad happened to the troops when they returned from Vietnam. The very slogan "support the troops" with the yellow ribbons and all that sort of presumes that someone doesn’t support the troops and that presumption is based on that sentiment, belief that when people came home from Vietnam they were treated badly and we don’t want to do that again this time.
By having these rallies in 2003, the people who supported the war use support the troops as a way to support the war. A lot of these rallies told stories of Vietnam vets who had been spat on. I got calls from people in Florida, North Carolina, Vermont,…news reporters who had been at these rallies and asking me, "What about these stories?" Sometimes they would even have men who said they were vets or family members who claimed they remembered someone being spat on. The myth was used to drum up emotional support for the troops, or better said, to dampen down opposition to the war. Again, the same way it worked during the Persian Gulf War, some were afraid of being outspoken against the war lest they be accused of being "against the troops."
I teach at Holy Cross College and just the other day in one of my classes, in the context of talking about the context of the Bush administration’s strategy of being very accusatory toward critics of the war policy as being "cut and run" Democrats, "soft on terrorism..." With no more context than that, one of my students said she was "undecided about the war, but as long as the troops were fighting it was really important to "support the troops and we have to support the mission…" Now is not the time to be critical of the war, it was, in her mind…all mixed together.
That’s the way it works on people’s emotions. It throws them off-target. The target is the war itself and what we need to be doing is opposing the war itself. Often emotions get kind of confused with this stuff about "supporting the troops." It creates just enough space for the administration to push on ahead.
http://www.lewrockwell.com/orig7/philion1.html
Concert rocks the Bush vote
04 August, 2006 CHULA VISTA – The Sean Hannity Freedom Concert filled Coors Amphitheatre on Wednesday night with country music, patriotic appeals and political commentary that covered the entire spectrum.
Everything from the right to the far right.
“The liberals don't hold rallies like this, do they?” one of the featured guests, radio talk show host Mark Levin, asked the audience of 13,000. “We raise the flag. They burn the flag.”
Welcome to the conservative Woodstock. Since 2003, Hannity, a Fox News Channel and radio commentator, has hosted an annual “Freedom Concert” in New Jersey. The format is a tried-and-true blend of country performers (Hank Williams Jr., Lee Greenwood) and red-state celebrities (Oliver North, Ann Coulter, Tom DeLay).
NANCEE E. LEWIS / Union-Tribune
Mt. Soledad Cross Case
Judge in cross case praised by colleagues, Liberal and activist labels called unfair
In a May 10 letter to President Bush asking for help to preserve the cross, Rep. Duncan Hunter, R-Alpine, took a broad swipe at “liberal judges” who have ruled on the case over the years.
Without naming names, Hunter lamented that “liberal judges have continued to rely on their interpretation of the California State Constitution to justify the removal of this historic memorial.”
Thompson has also become a target of the invective that litters blogs and Web sites discussing the case.
“A liberal activist judge has ordered the city of San Diego to remove a cross from Mt. Soledad or be fined $5,000 a day,” blared a May 5 posting from the conservative American Family Association.
Thompson is many things, but those who know him – former law clerks, lawyers who have been in his courtroom, former colleagues – say there are two things he most certainly is not: liberal or activist.
Instead they describe the judge – now 76 and on senior status with the court – as a rock-ribbed, serious-minded jurist with a reputation for handing down tough sentences in criminal cases.
Thompson was nominated to the bench in June 1970 by President Nixon, hardly a noted liberal.
http://www.signonsandiego.com/uniontrib/20060703/news_1n3thompson.html
It's a memorial for those who can pay
We need to put our efforts and money into improving the memorial. The private association receives no government funding, depending instead on membership donations and the purchase of plaques. Corporations will not donate if they think their money will go to legal costs so construction budgets have been tight for years.
The park needs more hand railings, parklike landscaping and flood lighting for night-time hours "so the veterans will be in perpetual light, shining on their service to their country" a docent told me. It also needs an on-site weatherproof, vandal-proof system for locating a veteran's plaque.
There are also plans to install additional walls to honor even more veterans, but that's impossible to do if the cross' future is in legal limbo.
And let's pass the hat for another commemorative statue that represents all our veterans' service to our country.
The plaques will last 300 years. Litigation shouldn't.
http://www.nctimes.com/articles/2006/07/03/opinion/chatfield/21_41_287_2_06.txt
Pelosi’ll gitcha if you don’t watch out!
September 20, 2006 TERRE HAUTE — Despite what I understand about the sausage-making nature of politics (you don’t want to watch what goes on in the process), it is weird to see a woman I actually know portrayed as the antichrist and a city in which I lived for three decades as the gateway to hell.
But those nightmare visions are the theme of a Republican ad campaign that takes aim at U.S. Rep. Nancy Pelosi and her city.
“San Francisco values don’t belong in Indiana,” says an anti-Brad Ellsworth mailer with the Golden Gate Bridge in the middle of a Hoosier farm. “…a vote for the Democrats is a vote to give San Francisco more power,” says the Indiana Republican Party chair.
The last time I talked to Pelosi was this past spring in the basement of Sts. Peter and Paul Catholic Church in San Francisco. The House minority leader and her husband were among several hundred people who’d gathered for a fund-raising dinner for a homeless charity organization that was founded a few years ago by film director Francis Ford Coppola.
Paul Pelosi was eyeing a candy-apple red Vespa that would be auctioned off for the charity. Nancy, dressed like all the guests in casual clothes, kiddingly reminded him he already has one of the classic Italian scooters.
She had given up trying to finish her pasta dinner as a steady parade of visitors — most of them friends — plunked down next to her to talk about San Francisco, Washington, their families, the homeless, the economy, Iraq and politics. As in my short catch-up with her, she asked more questions about each visitor’s welfare than she offered about her own work and worries.
Spending just a little “real time” with her reminded me what a remarkable human being Pelosi is. Born into a political family in Baltimore, she nevertheless served as a stay-at-home mother until her five children were old enough to allow Mom to pursue outside interests. Late start notwithstanding, she made her way from mere campaign worker to the first female member of Congress to be selected as her party’s house leader.
She and Paul have been married for 43 years and have grandchildren, yet there is a definite electricity between them that conveys “still best friends and lovers — after all these years.”
The encounter also reconnected me to a reality with which most of us lose touch, whatever our party affiliation: Our political leaders are people, not laminated cardboard cut-outs nor incarnations of Satan or Jesus.
http://www.tribstar.com/news/local_story_262225139.html?keyword=secondarystory
McCain Primary Election
Bob J. Perry
Hooley campaign fighting 'swift boat' group ads
October 18, 2006 The Oregon Democrat says the California-based Economic Freedom Fund is bankrolled by the Texas homebuilder who backed the "Swift Boat" ads against Democrat John Kerry in 2004.
The group accuses Hooley of "playing politics with the lives of our soldiers" in TV ads running across her Salem-based Fifth Congressional District.
Hooley campaign spokesman Matthew Schumaker calls the military ad, quote, "a total distortion that just doesn't ring true."
He says Hooley has made support for veterans and the National Guard a core campaign issue. And now she's calling on her Republican opponent, Mike Erickson, to ask for the ad to be removed.
http://www.kgw.com/news-local/stories/kgw_101806_politics_hooley_ads.50a85f4d.html
Rove associate backs group sponsoring ad attacking Lamont
October 16, 2006 A new television commercial that targets Democr tic Senate candidate Ned Lamont as a "tax-hiking liberal" is being aired by a tax-exempt advocacy group funded by a major Repub ican donor from Texas who worked with White House politica guru Karl Rove.
That funder, Bob J. Perry, also was the chief financial backer of Swift Boat Vets and POWs for Truth, another tax-exempt organization that attacked the reputation of U.S. Sen. John Kerry of Massachusetts in the 2004 presidential election.
Perry, a homebuilder in Houston, contributed a total of $1 million last week to the Washington, D.C.-based group that is sponsoring the ad attacking Lamont, the Free Enterprise Fund, according to Political MoneyLine, an Internet-based subscriber service started by two former Federal Election Commission officials and now owned by the nonpartisan Congressional Quarterly.
The Free Enterprise Fund subsequently reported spending $59,562 and $124,330, respectively, on "electioneering communications" related to Lamont's challenge to U.S. Sen. Joseph I. Lieberman in Connecticut and the election bid of another Democratic senate candidate, Jon Tester, in Montana.
Perry worked with Rove in Texas as early as the 1986 gubernatorial campaign, when Perry was the Republican candidate's campaign treasurer and Rove his consultant and fundraiser. Rove later "carefully cultivated" Perry and other big Republican donors in the ad.
President Bush and the chairman of the National Republican Committee, Ken Mehlman, have declined to endorse the Republican candidate for Senate in Connecticut, Alan Schlesinger. That has most analysts to conclude that Lieberman, who after losing the Democratic primary to Lamont is now running as an independent candidate, is the White House's preferred candidate.
Lamont's campaign spokeswoman, Liz Dupont Diehl, said Friday that the connections between Perry, Rove, and the Swift Boat group, "really show whose Joe Lieberman's friends are.
"Here is proof positive that Lieberman is more likely to side with George Bush and Dick Cheney than people of Connecticut," she said. "And these are the very same people behind the swift boat campaign, one of the most disgraceful incidents in American political campaigning, which defined new lows, and they are choosing to focus on Connecticut and to focus on Joe Lieberman."
Swift Boat Vets and POWs for Truth, which collected more than $2 million from Perry in 2004, criticized Kerry's service in Vietnam and questioned his wartime commendations.
Lieberman's spokeswoman, Tammy Sun, adamantly denied any connection between the incumbent's campaign and the Free Enterprise Fund ad, noting that would be illegal.
"The increasingly desperate Lamont campaign knows full well that we had no role or involvement of any kind in these ads," she said. "Much like Lamont's false attacks last week to scare seniors into believing that Joe Lieberman supports privatizing Social Security when he does not, Ned is distorting facts to mislead voters into believing something that is not true.
"Is Ned Lamont now accusing us of breaking the law by coordinating with a 527?" she added, referring to federal tax code under which the Free Enterprise Fund is organized. "We're still hearing no new ideas, only negative and false attacks."
The 30-second spot that is expected to run for a week charges that Lamont is "wrong about why jobs are leaving" Connecticut and blames the problem on the state's "highest taxes in the nation."
It also advises people to complain to Lamont and displays the telephone number of the cable company executive's business office.
Todd Schorle, a spokesman for the Free Enterprise Fund, said Friday that the spot was "an issue ad in which we wanted to let the voters know Ned Lamont's status on taxes in the state."
The spokesman also said he did not know how much the ad cost the group.
The organization said in a statement issued when the commercial began running Wednesday that it was part of its campaign "to educate the American people about liberal attempts to undermine the free market agenda."
The Free Enterprise Fund was organized last year after what the New York Times described as "a rift among the handful of millionaires behind the Club for Growth, a conservative fundraising powerhouse."
It has reportedly pursued "take action" campaigns to counter the national liberal organization MoveOn.org., repeal the state tax, change the Sarbanes-Oxley Act that required changes in corporate accounting and reporting, and reform Social Security.
It is chaired by New York businessman Mallory Factor. Jack Kemp, a former professional football player and Republican congressman from New York who is backing Lieberman, was one of the group's "honorary co-chairs" until Kemp's resignation earlier this year.
As a "527" committee, the group is permitted to raise money for political activities, including issue advocacy.
http://www.journalinquirer.com/site/news.cfm?newsid=17333102&BRD=985&PAG=461&dept_id=161556&rfi=6
'527' political groups raise cash, ready negative ads
October 15, 2006 WASHINGTON -- A previously unknown group led by a Republican political consultant in Houston is financing TV advertisements against nine Democratic House candidates from North Carolina to Arizona.
Americans for Honesty on Issues is spending more than $1 million on the ads, which accuse Democratic candidates of carpetbagging, coddling illegal immigrants, being soft on crime and advocating cutting off money for troops in Iraq. The TV spots appear to be the bow wave of a boatload of negative political advertising that will appear in the final weeks before the Nov. 7 election.
Many ads will be produced by independent organizations known as 527 groups, after the part in the tax code that allows them to spend virtually unlimited sums on political activity as long as it is not formally coordinated with parties or candidates. The 527 groups had raised nearly $200 million as of June 30. The total raised and spent by the groups on this election could surpass $300 million, eclipsing the $258 million spent in the last midterm election, in 2002.
The leader of Americans for Honesty on Issues is Sue Walden, a close ally of Tom DeLay, the former House majority leader who left Congress amid questions on ethics and fundraising. Walden also has raised money for President Bush. She referred a call seeking comment to Glenn M. Willard, a lawyer with Patton Boggs in Washington. Willard confirmed that Walden was the nominal head of the committee, but he declined to identify the group's donors or say how much it planned to spend.
Emily's List, which supports Democratic candidates, reported spending nearly $2 million from July to September.
Among the most active Republican 527 groups is the Economic Freedom Fund, which received a $5 million contribution from Bob J. Perry, a major Bush donor and underwriter of the Swift boat veterans group in 2004.
http://www.indystar.com/apps/pbcs.dll/article?AID=/20061015/LOCAL17/610150456/-1/ZONES04
Swiftboat Veterans Against Truth
http://www.sourcewatch.org/index.php?title=Robert_J._Perry
Murtha Smear Campain
Why Do Republicans Hate America's Veterans?
Martha Alito fled weeping: Senate's Democrats smeared
Steve Schmidt displayed his uncanny political talent -- the ability to launch "rapid response" -- when Martha Alito fled weeping after senators cast her husband, Judge Samuel Alito, as a closet racist during his Supreme Court confirmation hearings.
Working the phones, the lawmakers and the media, Schmidt, the administration's point man on Alito's confirmation, lamented that she had been pushed to the limit by the Senate's Democrats.
"The American people who saw this hearing today are going to be troubled by some of the tactics of the Democrats, who I think didn't focus on law, didn't want to have an uplifting debate -- but made a decision to try to attack Judge Alito and tear him down in the most unfair way, Schmidt, 35, told CNN's Wolf Blitzer in one live interview.
Republicans -- even some frustrated Democratic opponents -- shook their heads in admiration. Thanks to Schmidt's smear, the incident ballooned into front page headlines and photos sympathetic to the judge.
Governor's team adds former Rove protege, Political 'artillery shell' Steve Schmidt joins re-election effort
"I love California, Schmidt said. "It's a great privilege to be able to come back and work for a visionary governor who has restored both opportunity and a sense of direction to the state.
Abramoff-Reid
AP continued to mislead on purported Abramoff-Reid link Summary: Two days after an Associated Press report ignored crucial details that undermine a link between Sen. Harry Reid (D-NV) and disgraced Republican lobbyist Jack Abramoff, a follow-up AP article misrepresented new evidence, which the AP suggested provides further confirmation of such a link but, in fact, casts additional doubt on whether such a link exists.
Bush bashing by teacher spurs threats
Bennish said he invites opposing views, as long as students can back up their arguments.
He said no parents -- including the family of the student who recorded the lecture -- have complained to him, and all the students' parents had seen his syllabus and that school officials had approved it.
"I think what I've learned is the level of polarization that America is facing right now," he said. "There seems to be a growing intolerance for anybody that would dare to articulate (contrary) ideas to what is ... mainstream. It's very discouraging and as a society and as a country, we need to grapple with these issues.
"I certainly think this is a very scary precedent and this is something that could inhibit teachers from actively discussing these types of issues for fear they will be the next person to be broadcast" in the media.
Bennish has weathered the criticism well for a teacher in the profession for just six years, said his mother, Jan, who teaches at Harlan Elementary.
"I'm absolutely amazed at how well he's able to handle this," she said. "I think Jay's always been very mature."
Jay Bennish's lawyer, David Lane, said he expects the school district to make a decision on his client's future on Thursday.
"Aside from right-wing talk radio, he's got a lot of support," Lane said. "He's got some of the highest student evaluations of any teacher."
http://www.detnews.com/apps/pbcs.dll/article?AID=/20060308/SCHOOLS/603080395
