Alan Brinkley Accosted by FoxNews!
Super hero/History prof/Provost Alan Brinkley was walking to work one chilly day, and noticed someone following him. Because he didn’t think to look for one of those little red “Lion’s Watching” Lions to protect him against evil spirits, the stalker eventually caught up to him and introduced himself – Griff Jenkins of Fox News.
Jenkins was there to heckle Brinkley about his American history textbook, Unfinished Nation. In the clip aired on Fox Nation this morning, Jenkins follows Brinkley for several blocks while criticizing the book’s treatment of the War on Terror. Apparently Brinkley wrote that only one terror suspect detained at Gitmo was ever charged, while Fox claims that the number today is over one hundred.
Too bad Fox didn’t have data for 2006, when the book was published. It’s also too bad for Fox that Jenkins’ suit (no coat, of course) was so damn spiffy and the Fox logo was so damn bright. All that plus Jenkins’ youthful enthusiasm and thick-rimmed glasses made our wool-clad provost look positively evil.
Jenkins even followed Brinkley for two blocks, up 116th and into campus, until the silent, speed-walking prey finally reached the sanctity of Low and unceremoniously shut the door in the camera’s face. Perhaps Jenkins’ called the book “Unfinished Business” rather than “Unfinished Nation” on purpose this morning – Bwog sees an old-fashioned smackdown in the works.
Tags: alan brinkley, brinklicious, fox news, utter ridiculousness
1 April 2009 @ 2:31 PM · 26 comments
Alan Brinkley, I love you!!
Brinkley is wrong
Brinkley is dead wrong, as of June 2005 39 people had been convicted of terrorist activities. The professor should get his facts straight. See link attached:
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2005/06/11/AR2005061100381.html
fuck fox news
even worse, the clip cuts off at “He did issue a statement-”
God. The guys at Fox are such scumbags
You’ve really broken new ground in obnoxious, snide, self-congratulatory pseudo-journalism.
fox news can actually lecture someone on factual accuracy I’m pretty sure hell will freeze over…
we should organize an ironic protest in front of fox news headquarters i’d bet a hundred bucks we’d be on television within hours
is not the television you want to be on
http://thinkprogress.org/2009/04/01/jenkins-professor-ambush/
Full clip
Oh man, everyone needs to watch that full clip, where the Fox dudes actually try to act like they’re still right after Brinkley’s completely legitimate response. Their criticism basically goes from “He is lying!” to “He may have made some grammatical errors!”
Where is the whole clip, I wanna see it
Fox News and its assorted ideologues do not speak for me. What Jenkins did was downright creepy, and I’m glad Brinkley just walked away.
These guys are grotesque and extreme caricatures of what American conservatism should stand for. I’ll bet Wm. F. Buckley must be spinning in his grave. It’s a shame that most Ivy Leaguers would never associate conservatives with erudition, because of the various failings of G.W. Bush (not a real fiscal conservative), the current sad and pathetic state of the Republican Party, and the idiotic and maddening willingness of conservatives to let troglodytes such as O’Reilly, Hannity, and Limbaugh speak for them. There are several other reasons too, but this is after all a blog post. Maybe someday another Buckley will rise from Yale or Columbia, because conservatism really needs help today if it is to form an effective and credible opposition in the Obama era.
To let one particular ideology dominate a college campus is never a good thing, but it also doesn’t help if a few bad apples completely discredit the opposition.
There still is hope! If anything, the current state of the Republican Party will encourage younger conservatives to be more pragmatic and innovative.
There’s hope, not that conservatives may one day come back to the White House, but that they will bring back respect to the GOP and be able to work together with Democrats again.
Let’s just hope it happens sooner…
Thanks. I for one have never been a fan of putting divisive social issues before the things that I feel really matter to this country, i.e. moving to eliminate protectionism and towards a more open global economy, and improving America’s profile in foreign policy after neoconservatism almost destroyed it. This libertarian and deemphasizing view on social issues, however, is far less popular among mainstream conservatives, and talk radio and Fox News would make it seem that these things are all we care about. I feel an emphasis on practical free market alternatives (no matter what you think about the economic crisis, now is not a time to move towards trade barriers and away from capitalism, although some smarter regulation is needed) is needed to bring back conservatism in this country. It really bothers me, for instance, that there are no Republican House members left in New England. We need to work to change that.
There is still very much hope for conservatism in today’s society. But some moderation on social issues is needed in order to broaden our appeal.
Great. I agree with you that having idiotic spokesmen such as Limbaugh and Hannity does not serve the Republican party very well. I also agree with you that it doesn’t serve the Republicans in Congress very well to take their cues from people of such obvious mental limitations. It is shameful and ridiculous that no one in that party has the courage or character to stand up and describe those “talkers” for what they are– intellectual midgets. And I agree with you, lastly, that classical conservatism deserves a better defense– that it is a serious, perspective and an intellectual force to be contended with, and that anyone who derides it and confidently presumes to have all of the answers in the world or to simply have a superior ideology on the basis of the people’s verdict in the last election or any election for that matter is laughably ignorant. Very laughably ignorant. I caution you, however, not to think that the unpopular actions taken by those who held office in the past few years are all inherently wrong because of their unpopularity. It seems that you are trying, by labeling yourself a libertarian, to excise yourself from those presumed sins, and while I do not doubt that your ideological position is genuine, I caution you against conflating intrinsic fault with popular disdain. Non-libertarian conservatism too, or whatever you wish to call it, also deserves a proper defense, and is not an ideology that can only be held by a moron or disseminated by a purveyor of hot air.
of Wm. F. Buckley Jr. makes my day every time.
Oh, to live in his era…
Go Fox News.
If only i had gone to class this morning, I would have been there.
did anyone else notice the spiffy little phrases at the bottom of the screen? “indoctrinating youth”, “common myths in children’s textbooks.” Poor Alan Brinkley, that must’ve been a really awkward 5 minute walk to Low.
Props to public safety, who apparently at 40s on 40s, will be going through seniors’ bags to check if they have bottles in them, but couldn’t keep our provost from being harassed.
Guess the Public Safety officer was just chillin’ in his little booth and didn’t even notice the cameras pass by. Some security system and this was in broad daylight nonetheless!
it’s best that public safety didn’t intervene — that would have just made the situation look worse, the very sort of drama fox that would supply fox’s bullshit. If brinkley wanted he could easily have gestured to the guard in the booth for intervention. in fact i have a feeling that if a guard or someone did begin making a move brinkley would’ve just told them to stand down because it makes more sense to just ignore this sort of bullshit rather than make a confrontation of it
Even if it’s the best political move, it’s not their job to think about media strategy, it’s their job to keep our community members safe and comfortable. They will go through bags of 21+ seniors but are okay with a bunch of aggressive random people harassing our provost.
Fox Neews is amazing. Fuck all of you stupid ass communist/socialist/liberals out there that want to ruin America
Brinkley handled it like a champ – way to go – you made them look more ridiculous than they could have looked on their own. Well done!
also, nice hat!