Funmurphys: the Blog

Tilting at Windmills

The St. Louis Post Dispatch (home of the worst newspaper internet site - it doesn't have one) ran an op-ed by Michael Bellesiles yesterday. I responded with a letter to the editor:

I was amazed to see an oped in the Post by Michael Bellesiles that failed to identify him as serial liar and disgraced historian. Perhaps the Post has forgotten how he fabricated or distorted reams of data to support the theme of his book Arming America, how after the deception was discovered he was forced to resign from Emory University, the NEH took its name off the Newberry Fellowship he was awarded, and the Bancroft Prize for Arming America was revoked. What was Mr. Bellesiles response? Why he continued to lie and constantly change his story -- admitting no wrong doing but maligning his critics.

I was stunned that it ran the same day an editorial taking other organizations to task for their ethical lapses ran. Perhaps the editorial staff does have a fine sense of irony after all.

What's next for the Post? Will it hire Janet Cooke, Stephen Glass, or Jayson Blair? I hear they too are available.

OK, a touch harsh perhaps, but I wrote before I was declared a studmuffin. On second thought, perhaps it's not harsh enough. If Bellesiles had come clean and apologized, then I would have been harsh. As it is, why is this guy taking up valuable real estate in the paper? This is a question I ask about most pundits, though for different reasons.

Anyway, I haven't gotten a call yet, so I don't think they'll run the letter.

UPDATE 1/6/04:

The post ran a letter on 1/3/04 from historian Kevin Hurst taking Mr. Bellesiles to task for the inaccuracy of his history and shallowness of his argument in the his op ed and amonst other things cites:

"His claim that the "Gatling gun and its successors did not prove decisive in any war," is contradicted by the devastating effectiveness of the Maxim gun in the colonial wars of the late 19th century."

That was my mistake - rather than attack the substance of the letter, I attacked the man himself.