Rootless at the University of St Thomas

So the Catholic University of St Thomas has now reversed its decision to not allow Desmond Tutu to speak at the school. The decision shows what a complete rootless moral idiot the Rev. Dennis Dease, the guy who runs the school is, along with his puppet spokesman Doug Hennes. It seems Dease never says anything outright, only through Hennes, like some kind of ventriloquist.

I say "rootless" because Dease doesn't have a clue about real morality and is a terrible decision maker. You might remember that St Thomas in the past has allowed right wing bigots to speak with almost no problem - Ann Coulter and Michelle Malkin (who defends the Internment of Japanese Americans during World War II) are two of the biggest offenders. When they were warned before Coulter spoke they shrugged it off, only to have have to eat crow afterwards. Then when Tutu was invited to speak, they apparently - in contrast to when right wing bigots speak there - were inclined to ask people in the community about him, never mind that Tutu is a Nobel Peace Prize winner and an internationally adored figure. How could anyone even think of dis-inviting Tutu?

So who did Dease speak to? He's not saying, but a good guess is that he knows some right wing Jews whose views mirror his own authoritarian view of life, who apparently told him the Nobel Peace Prize winner was some kind of anti-Semite. Of course Dease believed these as-yet unnamed Jews, so he dis-invited Tutu.

Many people (not me) expect high religious officials to have good judgment and exercise it wisely. It's clear, however, that the right wingers who run St Thomas are not only moral idiots, but have tin ears as well. They didn't, wouldn't, or couldn't recognize clear bigotry in Coulter and Malkin, even when warned. However, when a true giant of international morality presented himself they by then knew they couldn't trust their own judgment, so went to a natural constituency - right wing religionists of another sect- for advice. Of course those right wing Jews to whom Dease outsourced the Tutu decision - whoever they were (I wish they would come forward) - hate Tutu because he has the temerity to criticize the war criminals in Israel.

And the moral cowards at St Thomas, afraid of angering their right wing base, naturally caved. Now with pressure from every corner (excepting, of course, Doug Tice, the movement conservative acolyte in charge of political coverage at the Trib), and no true moral compass of their own except their drive for worldly power, Dease and his cohorts have caved yet again.

Now Dease, in a statement, says he hopes to foster an atmosphere of reasoned debate around contentious issues. That would be nice, but St Thomas has clearly demonstrated they are in no position to moderate such a discussion.

UPDATE: See Trashtalking Ché and necklacing Bishop Tutu (all in a day's work for the local right) from Mark Gisleson. And Spot tells us about Doug Tice and the Hitler brand. Abdi Aynte of Minnesota Monitor reports that it was "Jewish Community Relations Council" that originally "voiced concerns" about Tutu. Behind the Lines has the Dease letter.

Powerlineblog and conservative philanthropy

Every now and then you get a glimpse of where the true power is over at Powerlineblog. Today Scott Johnson has a post up titled "Coming attractions," that publicizes two upcoming conservative movement events.

The first is the "Winston Churchill Dinner" being held by the Claremont Institute in California next month. Johnson and his partner in publishing John Hinderaker, are both "fellows" there. The Institute itself is partially funded by conservative philanthropy, receiving at least $9 million since 1985. The keynote speaker, and recipient of the Institute's "2007 Statesmanship Award," will be Donald Rumsfeld, who has numerous ties to conservative philanthropy, including a new appointment as a visiting scholar at the Hoover Institution, one of the top policy shops receiving conservative philanthropy. Doing the presenting will be none other than the Bookie of Virtue Bill Bennett, who is also a Claremont Institute Fellow, and is as central to conservative philanthropy as you can get. Johnson calls Bennett a "Powerline friend" in his post.

The second event is the "fall briefing" for a local Twin Cities "think tank" the Center of the American Experiment (CAE). When last we heard from CAE its future seemed to be in doubt due to internal divisions that resulted in the departure of senior staff and the return of the institution's founder Mitch Pearlstein. The Center has gotten a fair amount from conservative philanthropy, and if you look at its roster and events you can tell it is deeply intertwined in both the national conservative movement and Republican politics. Unsurprisingly Johnson is also a board member there, and Hinderaker was in the past.

The speaker at the CAE event will be none other than Bill Kristol, who's going to talk about "The New World," which I guess is code for the predicament Republicans now find themselves in. Kristol, son of one of the movement's founders, sits at the nexus of conservative philanthropy, media and politics. His organization, the Project for The New American Century, laid the groundwork for the invasion of Iraq, the most foolish war in 2,000 years (according to Martin Van Creveld).

A look at the CAE's quarterly publication reveals authors from across the conservative movement, including Johnson and Hinderaker, Chester Finn, Vin Weber, Sally Pipes, Abigail Thernstrom, Jean Bethke Elshtain, David Frum, David Blankenhorn, Wade Horn, Maggie Gallagher, and many more. Two writers for the CAE quarterly are now in positions of power at the Minneapolis Star Tribune. One is Doug Tice, who was a conservative editorial writer at the St. Paul Pioneer Press who is now the political editor at the Star Tribune (not kidding). The second is Katherine Kersten, who was in on the founding of the CAE, has held numerous positions there (including paid ones), and was an op-ed writer at the Trib. After Kersten was removed from the op-ed page at the paper she got a job there as a news columnist, a job she holds to this very day. Kersten is so political, in fact, that she was on a small, select committee that picked people for top jobs in Republican Minnesota Governor Tim Pawlenty's administration.

As I have argued in numerous venues, the CAE is a "think tank" in name only; it is really an extension of the Republican party, and a cog in the larger conservative movement. The fact that a good friend of theirs is the political editor at the Trib, and one of its founders is a news columnist are indicators of a strong influence on the definition of news in the Twin Cities. Kersten herself often works in tandem with Powerlineblog; frequently you'll see a particular topic covered by Johnson or Hinderaker, only to have the story appear in Kersten's column shortly thereafter. It works the other way, too. In another post just above the one referenced in this post Johnson links to three recent Kersten columns warning of the anarchy awaiting the country for tolerating Critical Mass bike rides.

When Kersten was appointed as a news columnist I complained to the paper's Reader's Rep (who has since been reassigned) that I knew of no news columnists who hadn't come up through the ranks of reporting. She tried to convince me, unsuccessfully, that Kersten had previous journalistic experience, but the truth is that she hadn't any. In actuality Kersten was and is a career movement conservative, working not just at CAE but also as a board member at the odious Institute on Religion and Democracy.

In their own way the conservatives have setup an institutional supply-side structure for getting their message out. First they create and subsidize hundreds of institutions like Claremont and CAE; next they find reliable Republicans to staff them. These institutions then create content for media dissemination, which is taken care of by blogs like Powerline and columnists like Kersten. Paul Krugman recently wrote that Americans don't like conservative and Republican policies on most major issues, and haven't for some time. Yet, Republicans keeps racking up political success stories. Krugman argues the reason for this dichotomy resides in the power of the conservative movement. He's on to something.

Friday cat blogging

Here are Abbey and Simon - such good little posers.

University of St Thomas and the outlines of Catholic Immorality

Today the Star Trib reports that Bishop Desmond Tutu won't be allowed to speak at the University of St. Thomas because his words about Israel are too "hurtful." This is the same place that welcomed Ann Coulter to campus a few years ago, only to have to repudiate her words after the visit, and who now says that she likes Rudy Giuliani because she believes he's crazy enough to nuke Iran. Welcome to modern Catholic values: Bishop Desmond Tutu, who helped stop apartheid in South Africa and who has compared the treatment of Palestinians in Israel to that treatment, is not welcome because of his views, but Ann Coulter, who says we should invade Muslim countries and convert them to Christianity is welcome. Let's just admit it: It's the Catholics who have become immoral.

BTW - when I first heard Coulter was to speak at St Thomas I contacted Doug Hennes, the university's spokesman to warn him about her views. He waved off my concerns by citing a time when St Thomas welcomed *gasp* a gay person to speak!

UPDATE: Looks like City Pages was the first with this story.

Newt: West vs. Forces of Islam

So Newt is out for prez. Now Newt will have to rely on his non-profit "American Solutions" to distribute his erstwhile campaign theme that World War III is in progress, and it's a war between "The West" and "The Forces of Islam."

Stupid cat pictures #4: Abbey

This is Abbey; like our other cats she came from the humane society. She's about 18 months old, and we think she is an American Ragdoll.

Kochs get free pass in Minnesota

A few days ago the PiPress wrote a story about an expansion of the Flint Hills refinery in Minnesota. The story (here) failed to mention that the plant is owned by the Koch brothers of Kansas, who are the nation's worst environmental criminals. You'd think a "business" story would mention who owns the plant, and what their record is, but no. The Kochs always get a free pass in Minnesota. BTW - the Flint Hills plant is so dirty that the Kochs actually changed the name of the plant to evade their own reputation as environmental crooks.

One other point: The former head of the Minnesota Pollution Control Agency, Sheryl Corrigan, who came to the MPCA after being an 'environmental manager' for 3M, another of Minnesota's biggest polluters, now works for the Koch brothers in Wichita.