I think what this remarkable hatchet job — or should one say hackette job — shows is just how awful the world will be if it ever comes to be ruled solely by women: notice how, as the video begins, both women, Megyn Kelly and Fox's legal analyst, Lise Wheel, have their teeth bared. But I digress.
The charge, as announced by Judge/Prosecutor, Megyn is that professor Tracy has:
suggested on his blog that:Judge Megyn continues the indictment with her own interpretation of the professor's beliefs:
"there may very well be elements of that event [Sandy Hook Massacre] that are synthetic to some degree, that are somewhat contrived. I think overall that the media really did drop the ball. I don't think that they got to the bottom of some of the things that have taken place there."
He believes the media dropped the ball by not pushing into why we didn't hear from more parents, and the fact that we did not hear from more distraught parents, and the fact that they were assigned police officers to guard them in their moment of turmoil means it was all a big cover up.These claims are not supported by direct verifiable quotes, and so appear to be libelous, although unless the professor has a billion dollars behind him he would be ill advised to try taking Fox News's and Megyn Kelly to court.
The fact is, though, that the professor is surely smart enough to refrain from what is being alleged: namely, to baldly state that, "it [the news coverage] was all a big cover up."
Turning, now, to Fox's legal analyst, Lise Wheel, Kelly asks:
And the question is, Lise, is whether the people who are demanding this guy be axed from Florida Atlantic University have a case to be made.Wheel immediately spins into a full frontal assault on the professor's, character, competence and career:
What he did was put his thoughts out there as fact and they could be seen as incompetent, gross incompetence. This is not the first time this professor has gone into this. He did the same with 9/11, same with the horrific attack on the movie theatre at Aurora, Colorado. So he has done this. This is his kind of MO, then to walk back and say this is my First Amendment right. Yes, maybe your first amendment right, but academic freedom, no. Academic freedom does not shield you from gross incompetence in the classroom in which you write.Lets look at this bit by bit:
"Put his thoughts out there as fact." Evidence, none offered.
"They could be seen as incompetence, gross incompetence." They, presumably, being his thoughts put out as facts, of which no example is provided. Actually, the professor seems consistently careful to phrase his questions about Sandy Hook in hypothetical terms. He is, in other words, raising questions that any victim of a terrorist outrage or a citizen of a democratic republic should surely be prepared to see answered.
"He did the same with 9/11 ... the horrific attack on the movie theatre at Aurora." What exactly "the same" refers to is not entirely clear. But the inference is clear enough, it was grossly incompetent.
"This is his kind of MO, then walk back and say this is my first amendment right." No evidence of this MO is offered. When did professor Tracy refer to his First Amendment right in connection with Sandy Hook, 9/11 or anything else? Maybe he did, but it's no concern of Kelly's Court, apparently, to establish the fact, let alone the evidence of an MO.
"Yes, maybe, it's your First Amendment right, but academic freedom no." Again, a straw man argument: no evidence is provided that Professor Tracy seeks to conflate his First Amendment right with his rights under his contract of employment with FAU.
"Academic freedom does not shield you from gross incompetence in the classroom in which you write." Here loose Wheel Lise abandons any pretense of journalistic integrity by mendaciously asserting that what professor Tracy has written on his blog is what he teaches in class. But since she offers no evidence of this claim, it seems reasonable to assume that she has resorted to the lie direct.
At this point, Megyn Kelly brings Mark, the prosecuting attorney into the discussion:
If he has tenure, Mark, is he unfireable?Mark, who seems not to be entirely clued in to the concept of a kangaroo court, with apologies to kangeroos, gets off in the wrong direction.
I believe he cannot be fired at all ...But veers back on course, continuing:
for these, what I think are offensive and insensitive statements. Lise makes a compelling argument ...Well that's good. Tag the professor as making "offensive and insensitive" statements, except that these supposed statements, in fact, consist in hypotheses or suggestions that would seem most highly offensive and insensitive to those with a criminal conspiracy to hide.
Then he veers again:
... but she's ignoring the law.Oh screw the law, this is Fox News, not the Supreme Court. But then young Mark (remind me not to have this guy on again) gets back on message:
Let's start off with, is this type of speech, assuming it is offensive and insensitive as many people would agree, is that protected by the Constitution, and it is. Look no further than Skokie vs. Illinois, which allowed skinheads to walk down Skokie, Illinois and announce that the Hurricane, I mean the Holocaust never happened.Oh that's good. Lining up Professor Tracy with the Holocaust deniers. I love it. That's really good.
And naturally Mark did not mention that the skinheads marching down the main street of Skokie, Illinois, a town with perhaps the largest concentration of Holocaust survivors in America, were members of the National Socialist Party of America led by Frank Collin, a multiple sex offender born, Francis Joseph Cohen. But then, the mainstream media had no interest in the possibility that the Skokie march may have served an agenda quite different from that avowed by the march's crypto-Jewish leader.
But back to Lise Wheel:
Can a tenured professor be fired for something like this. I would say yes, all the university has to show is that they're being fired for cause, that they did something that was beyond the course for reasonable employment. ... [when] you're positing as a fact ..."Positing as a fact:" hey that's brilliant. It's a complete logical self-contradiction that sounds learned and legalistic: "to posit," means to put forward as a basis for argument, i.e., as a hypothesis. But no, in Kelly's Court, to posit is to put out as a fact. And the professor clearly posited, so therefore, he stated as a fact.
He's talking about, "regardless of where one stands on the First Amendment, it is not unreasonable to suggest the Obama administration [had] complicity or direct oversight of an incident that has in very short order sparked a national debate on the very topic—and not coincidentally remains a key piece of Obama’s political platform."Well, now we know she can read. That's exactly what the professor wrote. And with his rather clunky construction "it is not unreasonable to suggest," he was clearly making a suggestion not a statement of fact. So what Judge Kelly is doing is conflating an opinion with an assertion of fact and then convicting the professor for a statement of fact that he did not make.
Then, Mark the prosecutor, who again seems to forget where the argument is supposed to be going, breaks in with:
He put this out on his private blog. He cannot be punished for that.Wow, now the Judge is really inflamed:
Suppose he goes on his private blog and advocates violence against children, could he be fired for that?Oh, good, Megyn, apply the paedophile/sadistic pervert smear. But Mark puts his foot in it, again.
Yes, that's unlawful.Well that's all we'll hear from him. Kelly's off on a closing rant.
What's funny is watching Mark the Prosecutor. It seems he wants to urge some semblance of respect for legal decency. But all that comes of whatever suppressed impulse he experiences is a twitching of his lips as Judge Kelly runs out the clock with a rapid-fire crescendo of verbiage.
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