Students block President Jonathan Veitch from his own office on the
Occidental College campus.
It looks like President Jonathan Veitch and the Occidental College Board of Trustees have met the student protesters halfway. As I count them, they agreed to meet at least five of the protester's 14 demands.
about
1. Resignation - No.
2. Chief Diversity Officer Promotion - Yes.
3. Chief Diversity Office Budget Increase - Yes.
4. More Diversity and Equity Board Funding - No.
5. Black Studies Program - No.
6. Increase Tenured Black Faculty - No.
7. Funding for Harambee - Yes.
8. Mandatory Training for Staff - Yes.
9. Demilitarization - No.
10. Removal of LAPD - No.
11. Intercultural Affairs Maintenance - Yes.
12. Elimination of First Year Education Program - No.
13. Physician of Color - No.
14. Coalition @Oxy for Diversity and Equity Demands - No.
If you score this differently, please add your comments in the space below.
What Veitch does not understand is the anti-white hostility embedded in this protest. The BLM protesters will not give up even though they got some of what they wanted, because what they want fundamentally is to eliminate white liberals from positions of power. I suspect this will come as a disappointing shock to Veitch and the rest of his administration.
The larger issue remains: The shortage of intellectual diversity at Occidental College. We will not have a real, vibrant, influential intellectual community at Occidental College until at least half the staff and faculty are conservatives. Luckily, conservatives do not worry about the race or gender of their ideological adherents.
John C. Drew, Ph.D. is an award-winning political scientist.
I
saw today that the Dartmouth College Republicans issued an open letter to the
president and trustees of Dartmouth College. As a former Williams College
political science professor, I experienced the same sort of hostility and
unfair treatment indicated in this open letter. My sense is that conservative
students and professors are the targets of profound discrimination in much of
the academic world. This letter is worth reading, in full:
It
is with great sadness and the utmost disappointment that we find ourselves
having to write this letter. As the Dartmouth College Republicans, we often
feel discriminated against by the administration and unwelcome on this campus.
As conservative students, we have often felt marginalized in this community. In
light of an especially toxic campus environment, a seriously concerning incident
has come to our attention: at a recent public event held on the evening of Monday,
November 16, Vice Provost Inge-Lise Ameer stated, “There’s a whole conservative
world out there that’s not very nice.” Furthermore, students at that meeting
repeatedly violated Dartmouth’s Principle of Community by referring to
conservatives by slurs such as “f***ing racists,” which Ameer did little to
stop.
Unfortunately,
her recent comments and actions are only the latest manifestation of a campus culture
that dismisses conservative voices. We are now at the point where the vast
majority of conservative students on campus do not feel comfortable expressing
their views. Even self identification as a conservative can invite serious
backlash. Many of us have been called bigoted, racist, and homophobic — among
other epithets — for simply stating our opinions. Thus, it is especially
concerning that a senior administrator would casually encourage a culture of
prejudice against
conservatives on this campus.
At
the same public event, Vice Provost Ameer also stated, “If you’re feeling
unsafe and you’re not feeling like you are getting responded to then contact me
directly and we will deal with it because that is not right.” We feel unsafe,
and we feel that we are not being responded to. The same resources made
available to the Black Lives Matter protesters, including regular meetings with
senior administrators, should be made available to conservative students on
campus. An open and polite dialogue is essential to any college campus.
It is
difficult enough to be a conservative on any college campus, and it is simply
unacceptable that any administrator would reinforce such a hostile climate.We
urge Vice Provost Ameer to condemn the actions and words of protesters and to
send an open and public apology to all of campus, retracting her previous
statements on conservatives and reaffirming the need to respect conservative
students and their opinions.
The intellectual influence and credibility of
our liberal arts colleges is being reduced to nothing because of the open
hostility to conservatives and conservative thought expressed by so many staff,
faculty and students at places like Dartmouth and Occidental College. Given the
mistreatment of conservatives on college campuses, I think it is time to fight
back, establish new institutions, or move education to a fresh, on-line model
that will allow for a higher level of freedom of speech.
John C. Drew, Ph.D. is an award-winning political scientist.
Oxy sociology professor Lisa Wade
claimed that it was horrifying
to see a booklet on how to confront
a liberal professor. No
conservatives welcome here.
Since students at Occidental College seldom, if ever, hear from a conservative political science professor, I
thought it would be a public service to respond to their demands. I'll do so from my independent perspective. This will be, I expect, a useful example of uncomfortable learning.
Demand #1 Immediate removal of president Veitch.
This demands appear to be completely feckless. Veitch has the support of the Board of Trustees. He is not going anywhere. By any measure he has outperformed the previous affirmative action presidents including a hopelessly incompetent female president and a rude, divisive black president. Veitch could have every protester removed from the campus and dismissed from the school and I don't think any of us would think the less of him. When student protester's over-the-top demands lose the support of even staunch liberals, I think it is fair to say they are done.
Demand #2 Promotion of the Chief Diversity Officer to Vice President level.
Yawn. What is a chief diversity officer anyways? It is generally a weak, symbolic figure who has little purpose except to give die-hard liberals the sense they are accomplishing something. The whole role is a waste of money that adds nothing of value to the educational process. What might make sense, however, is to appoint an Intellectual Diversity Officer (IDO). They would investigate charges of liberal bias among faculty members including Caroline Heldman and Lisa Wade. The IDO would be responsible for protecting freedom of speech on campus, making sure that conservative students and faculty were not subject to discrimination in any manner including hiring practices. Ideologically, the faculty should reflect the basic political divides in the nation. At least half the faculty members, for example, should be Republican. I can't think of anything that would more dramatically improve the quality of education at Oxy than hiring and promoting the most competent conservatives to all available jobs on campus.
Demand #3 Increase the budget of the CDO office by 50%.
The problem with this demand is what do you cut and who do you harm in the process. The protesters never tell us how to pay for this. Maybe Veitch could take a $50,000 pay cut to fund the CDO? Better yet, make the protester's pay for this if they want it so much. Each of them could pay an extra $500 in their tuition bill. If they aren't willing to pay for this out of their own pockets, then it is probably a waste of money for all students to pay for it.
Demand #4 $60,000 allocated to DEB to fund programming and provide resources for black and other marginalized students.
The Diversity & Equity Board is an official student-led branch of the Associated Students of Occidental College. It is supposedly focused on empowerment and improved conditions for structurally marginalized groups. To an outside observer like me, however, it looks like a slush fund for a small group of liberal students to spend as they please. Really, it is more efficient for them to spend their own money. I might support this if an equal amount was given to conservative students on campus. Since the major problem at Oxy is a lack of intellectual diversity, I think $60,000 would go a long way in righting the ideological balance on campus. This fund would pay for visits of prominent, articulate conservatives such as Suzanne Venker.
Demand #5 Creation of a fully funded and staffed Black Studies program, a demand that has not been met for over 40 years.
This looks like another, wasteful, adventure in identity politics. It is difficult for me to understand what sort of job you get after you graduate as a black studies major. In my experience, these Black Study programs end up being a way to get unqualified black professors on campus. The problem is everyone knows that they are unqualified so that sort of defeats the point of have more examples of black academics on campus. Overtime, I'm sure the black family will strengthen and more black families will produce scholars worthy of teaching at Occidental College. In the meantime, however, it seems silly and counter productive to artificially increase the number of black faculty on campus by creating a new, black only niche occupation.
Demand #6 Increase percentage of tenured faculty of color by 20% for the 2017-2018 school years, and by 100% over the next 5 years.
As long as black culture devalues fatherhood and disciplined education, we should not expect it to produce a greater number of black academics, certainly not enough who would be capable of holding their own at places like Occidental College. Oxy is already less prestigious and less elite than when I attended it. At that time, weaker female professors were replacing better qualified male professors. I don't think the school is doing itself any favors by adding unqualified or less qualified faculty members simply because they are black. It is feckless to blame racism for issues which are almost entirely due to structural weaknesses in black culture and the consequences of black identity politics.
Demand #7 Provide funding for Harambee, the student group for black men which has not received funding in 5 years. This seems like a waste of money. Plenty of black men would do better if they attended schools that were a correct match with their level of preparation. Thanks to affirmative action, too many of them end up at places were they are guaranteed to have lower GPA's, fail and drop out. The problems they face are a by-product of affirmative action. Get rid of the special treatment and the black men who remain will be more than able to hold their own.
Demand #8 Institute mandatory training for all college employees, especially Residential Education, Student Affairs, and Campus Safety, that provides tools to properly assist people from marginalized backgrounds. Again, this just seems silly. What exactly are these special "tools." If someone could explain to me what special tools need to be used with people from marginalized backgrounds, then I might be in favor of this. Otherwise, it looks like another waste of time and money.
John C. Drew, Ph.D. is an award-winning political scientist.
Black student protesters at Occidental College are complaining about
how the school mistreats and neglects them. Things heated up enough that on Tuesday of this week they staged a sit-in at an administration building on the Eagle Rock campus. They
want the resignation of the school's president Jonathan Veitch.
Their demands include “an increase in faculty in staff of color, a black studies
program, more funding for students of color to do more programming and bring
more speakers” to the school, “and so we want that by Friday," said Mika
Cribbs, vice president of the Black Student Alliance, which organized the
protest along with the Coalition at Oxy for Diversity and Equity.
Personally, I
don't care for Veitch. He is a classic leftist. He ticked me off when he failed to respond to my complaints that I was abused by
left-wing professor, Peter Dreier, who went off on me during a visit I made to the
campus during the last presidential campaign. Ironically, I have been treated nicely by one of the most radical voices at Oxy, political science professor Caroline Heldman. I even spoke to one of her political science classes back in 2011. She has been among those most critical of Veitch in the past, particularly in regard to his efforts to reduce rapes among the students at Occidental College. For inexplicable reasons, my contacts with other political scientists at Occidental College have been frosty at best.
Veitch has been in hot water for awhile among his liberal peers for his apparent failure to crack down on campus rapists. For a full list of the things Veitch
did which look questionable to the protesting students, check out the image below. You can enlarge it by clicking on it.
Occidental College was not on my radar screen at all today until I got this obsequious letter from the chair of the Occidental College
Board of Trustees. It reads:
Dear
John,
I
sent the following message to the campus community this afternoon that I wanted
to share with you.
We
live in a society that is divided by issues of racial injustice and other
inequities. I deeply regret that Occidental is not immune from those problems.
Despite our best intentions and collective commitments to creating a safe and
welcoming environment, Occidental remains a microcosm of that society.
We
must, and will, do better.We
recognize the personal pain of these experiences, and we support action to
address issues of racism and discrimination in a meaningful way. Leading the
way in diversity has been at the core of the College’s mission for many years,
and it will continue to drive our actions for more to come.While
we are listening to community members’ demands, it is our responsibility to act
in the best interest of the College. We stand in full support of President
Veitch and have no intention of changing the leadership of the College.
Our
community has flourished in a multitude of ways under President Veitch’s
leadership, including working through some very challenging issues. We know
that the only way that timely solutions will occur is under Jonathan’s
leadership.The
Board of Trustees is in a very good position to appreciate what the president
does with his time. From the very beginning, Jonathan has focused on creating a
more diverse and inclusive institution. He has been tireless in raising money
for scholarships; hiring a diverse faculty and staff; and furthering the
mission of the College. He has our full support. We believe that the only way
forward is to focus on the meaningful work we share — making Occidental a more
diverse, welcoming and inclusive institution.
There
is something quite pleasant in watching the left devour itself. I'll keep a
watch on this issue. My prediction is that the school will cave to the most absurd demands of the student protesters without any concern at all for how those demands impact the interest of white students and white professors. If the black protesters start acting out with violence against white/conservative students on campus, I will revisit this issue. If any of the conservative students on campus need assistance in getting out their message, then I would be glad to help with that too. Now days, you can do a lot with a blog and a Twitter account. It is particularly helpful is conservative students capture extremist moments on camera. This would be a good time, for example, to pretend to be a student radical, say extreme things, and see how the faculty and staff react.
John
C. Drew, Ph.D. is an award-winning political scientist.
I watched Mitt Romney dominate the presidential debate immediately after viewing the time travel movie, Looper. If I had access to time travel, I would use it now to leverage my role as the only person on Earth willing to testify that young Obama was a genuine Marxist socialist in 1980. Energized by Romney’s performance, I am asking myself what can I do - right now - to forestall a real life enactment of the future imagined by Rian Johnson, writer and director of Looper. After all, Johnson’s vision looked so bleak that my wife’s reaction was to say: “Looks like Obama won.”
If I had the advantage of time travel, I would go full on Bruce Willis right now. I would go to 2008 and introduce myself to the television studios of Fox News, CNN and MSNBC.
I believe public knowledge of my face-to-face confrontation with young Obama’s ideological extremism in 1980 would have helped prevent Obama’s election in 2008. My account of Obama’s anticipation of a Communist revolution would have alerted voters to the reality that Obama was not a bipartisan politician, but rather a long-standing advocate of class warfare and other hateful ideas promoted earlier by the likes of Frank Marshall Davis. My story would have highlighted the real Obama, the Obama who asserted, as he did at a at a Martin Luther King Day speech at the University of Chicago in 2002, “that rich people are all for non-violence” simply because “they want to make sure people don’t take their stuff.”
I would share with the people of 2008 that Obama is stuck in the ideological past. He is a partisan extremist who cannot imagine doing what Clinton did to save the American economy or uplift the black urban underclass. Obama is the sort of ideological purist who would never pivot to the middle. I would tell the people of 2008 that Obama’s lack of bipartisan skill would blow a perfectly good deal with House Speaker John Boehner for reducing the federal deficit. Instead of cutting the deficit in half, I would tell them Obama will increase the deficit more than all the presidents before him. I would alert the people of 2008 to the fact that Obama would be eager to weaken the previously rock solid work requirements of welfare reform. I would repeat a key line from the movie: “Trust me, I’m from the future.”
Lacking the option of time travel, I still think my story helps explain why it was fairly easy for Mitt Romney to defeat Barack Obama in a formal debate. I can report that young Obama was no genius. I saw signs of that young Obama last week when Romney pointed out that in 25 years in business he had never seen a special tax break for corporations who send jobs overseas. Obama - without his teleprompter and entourage of liberal sycophants – is apparently incapable of reacting forcefully to a verbal punch from a true business and political heavyweight.
Temperamentally, I remember young Obama treated my more accurate understanding of world history with an abrupt, even demagogic hostility. I distinctly remember young Obama’s dismissive, arrogant attitude even as I was presenting him with compelling evidence that Marxist theory was dead wrong at predicting the path of European social and economic events. I remember schooling young Obama so thoroughly in just one evening myself that he left my girlfriend’s house agreeing with my more moderate neo-Marxist perspective.
Culturally, I can report that when I debated young Obama in 1980 he talked like a white guy. I did not see a trace of the phony accent that highlighted Obama’s shocking comments regarding the redistribution of the wealth to a conference of black ministers at Hampton University in Virginia in 2007. In fact, the young Obama I met in 1980 talked like a wealthy, privileged white guy. It never occurred to me to think of young Obama as African-American. After all, the African-American students at Occidental College were largely uninvolved in radical campus politics. They were more likely to be active in the Gospel choir than the Democrat Socialist Alliance. Instead, young Obama seemed more like a foreign prince visiting in the United States.
While I cannot enjoy the benefits of time travel, I do live within six hours of Las Vegas, NV. I suspect my Bruce Willis moment will come when I share my story of debating young Marxist Obama with swing voters in the nearby Silver State. My wife and I have signed up to spend a weekend in Las Vegas walking precincts for the Romney/Ryan campaign. We will enjoy some meals, hotel accommodations, a night on the town and an opportunity to impact this historic election. I have my tagline ready: “Trust me, I’m from the past.”
John C. Drew, Ph.D. is an award-winning political scientist. He applies his skills as a grant writing consultant in the Southern Calfornia area. His website is at the following link: http://drdrewguaranteedgrants.com/about-us/
I have been waiting to get my story out in a professional quality video. Here is the first successful effort from the folks at Simply America. They spent about three hours working with me and produce about five minutes of the best stuff on their new mini documentary. As I review this tape, I am reminded that Barack Obasma has never shared his conversion story, the story that explains how he stopped being a Marxist socialist.
My conversion story is already out there. As such, I am happy to do whatever it takes to keep this series of documentary films rolling along. You can help too by donating $20 at the Simply America website.
John C. Drew, Ph.D. is an award-winning political scientist.
I just witnessed a remarkable political event. This evening, the Orange County Republican Central Committee (OCGOP) denied its endorsement of a Republican incumbent, Rep. John Campbell. To win the local GOP endorsement Campbell needed a 2/3 majority of the elected central committee members. His effort fell short by just one vote.
The evening began with roll call, recognition for elected officials and extraordinary volunteers. Out of all the endorsements given out this evening, Campbell was the only incumbent facing a challenger - Republican candidate John Webb.
As you may know, John Webb is new to politics. He served in the United States Marine Corps and has been a California highway patrolman, and a police officer. In the private sector, John was a corporate executive with State Farm Insurance Company and currently owns and operates a successful insurance brokerage. Locally, John has become a favorite among Tea Party activists. I was honored, for example, when he asked me to be the keynote speaker at his upcoming fundraising event this Thursday evening.
Rep. Campbell spoke first. He stressed his role in warning about California's budget crisis and the significant role he played nationally in fighting against earmarks. Campbell looked nervous and a little hyper-active with his edgy, scruffy beard. Next, John Webb spoke. Webb came across as calm, friendly, self-deprecating in his humility and honesty. It quickly became obvious, however, that the most vocal members of the crowd were rooting for Webb to stop Campbell's effort to win the endorsement of the local Republican party.
Webb, in particular, contrasted his views with Campbells saying that he would have voted against TARP and against allowing gays to serve openly in the military. Graciously, Webb said that he did not want to attack Campbell. He merely said that he offered a different "skill set" that was more appropriate to the new conditions faced by the Republican party and warned that voters would lose faith in the Republicans if we did not offer candidates who held tightly to strong conservative ideology.
In the end, the OCGOP appeared divided over endorsing Campbell. A number of speakers, for example, expressed unhappiness that Rep. Cambell had not spent more time in the district and had only conducted one townhall event. Campbell sort of made things worse by suggesting that since he had more time to focus on issues as a member of Congress that he was the recipient of better and higher quality information than those in the audience who doubted the wisdom of his decisions.
(I sort of took it as a personal attack when Campbell suggested that Webb was "pandering" to people in the district. I really don't think that Webb's welcoming of my message was anything but a straightforward recognition that I'm telling the truth about young Obama's radical extremist ideology. I don't see Webb pandering to me or to all the others who see Obama as a significant threat to the fundamental tenets of American culture and traditional economic success.)
In the end, OCGOP Chairman Scott Baugh asked the elected central committee members stand to record their votes and Campbell fell short of securing the endorsement. Campbell got 41 votes for his endorsement, but needed 42 of the 63 total votes cast. I have no doubt this will be big news around the nation tomorrow and that it will send a signal that plenty of people back home in Orange County are unhappy with Rep. Campbell's performance in office.
John C. Drew, Ph.D. is an award-winning political scientist.
Laguna Hills, CA – John Webb’s campaign for Congress will host a special event at the Laguna Hills Community Center on February 23rd for a speaking engagement featuring Dr. John Drew and Republican candidate for Congress, John Webb.
Along with officially endorsing John Webb, Dr. Drew will speak on the topic of, “Why Barack Obama’s Past is More Important than His Future.” Dr. Drew is a political scientist who has shared his face-to-face observations of young Barack Obama’s ideology in articles published in American Thinker and David Horowitz’s Front Page Magazine. In attendance will be supporters of John Webb’s campaign for the 45th Congressional District and individuals who are seeking a true Conservative, not a politician tied to the interests in Washington.
“As a resident of Orange County for over 40 years, Marine Corps Veteran, and a job creator as a corporate execute and small business owner I understand the issues that impact my community,” said Congressional candidate John Webb. “I’m committed to listening to the concerns of the citizens and creating policy that pulls back bureaucracy and cuts spending.”
The event is exclusive with limited seating; a donation to John Webb for Congress is required to RSVP. The highlights will include:
• John Webb discussing his Campaign for Congress and issues platform;
• Dr. John Drew speaking about Barack Obama’s friends and political ideology while Obama was a sophomore at Occidental College in Los Angeles;
• Open mic for questions from guests and attendees.
“I’m happy to endorse John Webb. He is a Marine, a former California Highway Patrolman and a successful businessman who will bring new leadership to Orange County,” said Dr. John Drew. “I fully support John as a constitutional conservative who will help defeat Barack Obama and take back our country.”
John Webb is a Republican running for Congress in Orange County’s 45th Congressional District. John is a husband, father, small business owner, former corporate executive, former California Highway Patrolman, Veteran, and resident of Orange County, CA for over 40 years.
As a Conservative with a strong sense in the U.S. Constitution, John is a leader who believes that implementing the core principals of America - Less Taxes, Smaller Government and More Freedom - will bring this great country back to prosperity and growth. More information on John and his campaign can be found at www.johnwebb2012.net.
About John C. Drew, Ph.D.
Dr. John C. Drew is a former Marxist Socialist who met Barack Obama - and knew many of his closest friends, favorite professors and political allies - at Occidental College in the early 1980s. He is among a handful of people in the world who not only knew the young Obama but is also willing to go on the record about what they knew of his ideology.
Dr. Drew, now a Republican, earned his Ph.D. from Cornell University and won the William Anderson Award from the American Political Science Association. Dr. Drew is an author, trainer, and consultant in the field of non-profit grant writing, fund raising and program evaluation. More information on Dr. John Drew can be found at http://www.johndrew25.blogspot.com/.
John C. Drew, Ph.D. is an award-winning political scientist.
As you may know, John Webb is a Republican candidate for California’s 45th congressional district. I'm very honored that he has decided to feature my take on young Obama's ties to Marxist socialist ideology at his upcoming fundraising event in nearby Laguna Hills, CA.
The title of my speech will be “Have You Ever Wondered About President Obama’s Ideological Beliefs While Attending Occidental College?”
As a graduate of Occidental College and a former Marxist who met the young Obama, I think I can offer unusually clear and compelling insight into President Obama's ideological ties to the Marxist socialist left and help clarify where Obama wants to lead our nation if he is re-elected in 2012. My college ex-girlfriend was co-president of the Democrat Socialist Alliance while young Obama was a sophomore at Occidental College. She was one of the three featured speakers at the famous anti-apartheid event at Occidental College in Feburary 1981 where Obama made a brief appearance in a skit. One of the other speakers was Obama's college roommate, the admitted Marxist socialist, Hasan Chandoo. I can verify that both Obama and Chandoo were ardent Marxists when I hung out with them and debated the finer points of Marxist theory.
This crucial fundraising event will take place at 6:45 p.m. to 8:30 p.m., Thursday, February 23, 2012. I'll be speaking at the Laguna Hills Community Center, Heritage Room “C” 25555 Alicia Parkway, Laguna Hills, CA.
The pricing for this event seems very reasonable to me. If you RSVP before February 10 the tickets are $25 for individuals and $35 for couples. If you RSVP on or after February 10 the price moves up to $40 for individuals and $50 for couples.
To get your tickets to this first ever fundraising event for John Webb, you can make a donation online at http://www.johnwebb2012.net/ or purchase your tickets at the door. (If you purchase your ticket online, they will ask you to present your John Webb for Congress donation receipt at the door for entry.)
As you would expect, contributions to John Webb for Congress are not deductible as charitable contributions for federal income tax purposes. Corporate contributions are prohibited. Contributions from foreign nationals are not permitted. Federal law requires them to use their best efforts to collect and report the name, mailing address, occupation and name of employer for each individual whose contributions exceed $200 in an election cycle.
John C. Drew, Ph.D. is an award-winning political scientist.
One of the most interesting aspects of the news, for me, is watching the Obama team dodge questions about Obama's past. Just today, for example, Ed Henry of Fox News asked Obama spokesperson, Jay Carney, about Obama's college transcripts. I was surprised at how quickly Carney dodged the question and simply referred the reporter to the Obama campaign.
The truth of the matter is that there must be bad new in those transcripts or they would have been released a long time ago. I met the young Obama while he was a sophomore at Occidental College and long before he became a genius in the eyes of so many simply by getting himself elected as president of the Harvard Law Review.
The young Obama I met was a person of average intellect for the Occidental College campus. He seemed more like the sort of guy who was interested in parties than in serious academic issues. He was, as I have indicated before, a Marxist socialist anticipating a Communist style revolution in the U.S. He did not, however, show any signs of superior intellectual potential.
As I have said for a long time now, Obama's charisma depends, in part, on the perception that he is a genius. As one of those who got to know how young Obama's mind worked, I can assure you that he was not, and never was a genius.
John C. Drew, Ph.D. is an award-winning political scientist.
First, the Fogbow Obots assert that I have described myself as a "classmate" of young Obama. This, of course, is completely untrue. I have always made it clear that I was a graduate student from Cornell who was visiting friends from Occidental College when I met young Obama. Nevertheless, this initial lie tells you a lot about the ruthlessness and disregard for the truth which seems common at the Fogbow website.
On the basis of this untruthful claim, the Fogbow people pretend to catch me in a lie simply by repeating my basic statements. For my full report on meeting young Obama, see my first article in American Thinker called Meeting Young Obama.
Second, the folks at Fogbow try to make me look foolish by saying that I believe Obama is still a Marxist socialist simply due to the brief exposure I had to his ideas when Obama was a sophomore at Occidental College. They write:
Based on spending just a few hours with the President when he was 19 years old, in a relaxed social setting at an age when most students enjoy exploring and trying new ideas and thoughts, Drew concluded the President was and still is a radical Marxist.
I would have to be mentally ill to say that I base my take on Obama today simply on my face-to-face exposure to young Obama's ideological extremism. My take on President Obama's abiding commitment to Marxist socialist thought is based on a combination of factors including 1) his ties to Rev. Wright, Bill Ayers and Sen. Alice Palmer in the 1990s, 2) the lack of a conversion story in the Obama presidential history which would indicate he dropped his youthful radicalism, and 3) the continuing rhetoric coming from Obama - as a candidate and as president - which indicates a profound commitment to a class conflict model of economic development and an out and out hostility to our traditional U.S. economic system.
I have also provided detailed rebuttals to the inaccurate information being promoted by one of the members of the Fogbow website, Anna Stoddard, who is the blogger at "Oh For Goodness Sake." For example, I immediately responded to Stoddard initial attack on me - which she posted on February 17, 2010 - where she made the bizarre suggestion that I worked for Ann Coulter while she was an undergraduate student at Cornell University. You can see my response in this article at my own blog site.
In addition, I also responded immediately to further bizarre comments made by Anna Stoddard on March 10, 2011 which made the even more bizarre suggestion that I should have known that Obama drove a red Fiat when, in truth, I made it very clear in my own work that the fancy car I saw Obama riding in when I first met him was owned by his wealthy Pakistani friend, Hasan Chandoo. You can see my rebuttal to this silly idea in this article at my own blog site. As far as I can tell, Stoddard is an elderly retired lady currently living in Mexico. I think the silly mistakes in her blog show that she is spending too much of her retirement money on things that are killing her brain cells.
The folks at Fogbow like to position themselves as journalists who have a more accurate take on reality than their conservative opponents. All I can say is that the Fogbow folks have a history of creating false documents and conducting dirty tricks. Based on the gap between my real story and their out and out lies, I would think no one should take the folks at Fogbow seriously when it comes to getting the facts out about the young Obama.
John C. Drew, Ph.D. is an award-winning political scientist.
I noticed that Mark over at New Corpse is lying about me as part of a larger effort to smear Fox Nation for reporting my take on young Obama's ideological extremism.
Here's my response to Mark, a response that he did not allow to be published on his website. I've cleaned it up to catch the typos, but it is substantially the way I wrote it yesterday:
Let’s get real here. First, you are lying when you write that I claimed Obama was a “close friend.” I never used those words. You use them, however, to make it look like the reality of the situation was in conflict with my own stated story. You are actually making up a statement from me…which I consider to be dishonest journalism. It is shocking to me that you accuse Fox News with promoting make believe and yet you make up the concept that I once said Obama was a “close friend.” What you do in your article is make a false claim about what I’ve said and then turn around to make it look like I have exaggerrated my contacts with young Obama – which I have not.
Chandoo is not a reliable source to attack my testimony – something you leave out of your report drawn from Ron Kessler’s article. Even worse, you left off the first part of the Chandoo quote which verifies I was in the room and that Chandoo considers me a credible source.
“If that’s what John Drew said, that’s what he said,” Chandoo commented.
I don’t see how you can leave out that quote. What is amazing is that Chandoo verified that he knew me and that we met together that evening. The smart thing would have been for Chandoo to claim he never knew me at all. He failed to do that. In this sense, I see my story collaborated. You, however, suggest my story is uncollaborated and dubious. If I had simply made up a story of arguing with young Obama, then don’t you think Chandoo would have said that?
You also lie when you write that Chandoo is a “former” Obama associate. You know from the article itself that Chandoo still sees Obama fairly frequently…at least at White House events. Mark, I can’t make these things up. You are really out and out distorting the historical record by making up a strawman comment from me and not telling your readers the whole story about what Chandoo has said in that Kessler article.
Next, my story isn’t “ancient.” My article describing meeting and debating young Obama came out in American Thinker in February 2011. I was only interviewed on the Michael Savage show last week. Fox News has only last week even acknowledged that I exist and that my story is available to scholars and opposition researchers.
Finally, you go out of your way to make it look like I’ve been inappropriately pushing my story when, in truth, what is shocking about my story is that it was not immediately picked up in 2008 when I first went public with it. Since then, however, my story has been covered in books by Michael Savage, Paul Kengor, Stanley Kurtz and Jack Cashill.
For you to suggest that my story has only been featured in “radical right-wing rags and Internet backwater rabble” strikes me as extremely odd when it has also been featured in major books produced by big name publishers.
All in all, the gap between your take on my story and the reality of the story is pretty stark.
I really think you owe me and your readers an apology and you ought to correct your story to reflect the reality of the situation. To claim, as you do, that I ever said I was a “close friend” of Obama is an obvious falsehood, a falsehood that you use to embarrass me in front of my family and my business clients – many of who are liberals or independents.
I respectfully request that you change your story to make it clear that I have never said what you are claiming I said in your article above. In addition, I want to ask that you add the full comment from Chandoo so your readers can see how it collaborated my story enough for Kessler to write it and for Newsmax to publish it. My business is dependent on my reputation for honesty and integrity. For you to make up and print obviously false information about me strikes me as deeply unfair.
MARK'S REBUTTAL IS BELOW:
John, this is getting tedious. You cannot continue to use my web site as your platform, particularly when you keep repeating the same arguments that have already been hashed over to death. Get your own blog.
As for your complaint about whether you said Obama was a “close friend,” here is what you said about it:
“I certainly considered him a friend, a confidant…”
So you may not have used the word “close” but “confidant” implies the same thing. At least to me. I don’t have any confidants who are not also close friends (and that’s as close as you’re gonna get to a correction).
I also find it curious that you’ve spent so much time and energy bitching about the word “close” on an obscure blog, but have ignored the far more misleading assertion that you and Obama were “college mates” that appeared on a far more read web site, Fox News.
As to your complaint about the age of your story, it did not begin in February 2011, as you state above. It goes back to 2008. You have acknowledged that yourself. So this story, in news terms, is ancient.
You are welcome to comment on anything else I write so long as your comment is civil, relevant, and reasonably concise. But this topic is closed due to boredom.
MY RESPONSE TO MARK:
What?! How is “confidant” the same thing as “close.? I can’t take you seriously any more. In your article above, you say I claimed to be both a “close friend” and a “confidant.” Right? You can be a confidant with someone you just met in an elevator in Las Vegas. The larger issue is that you made up a false claim from me – on purpose – to discredit me. You dehumanized me and didn’t even consider the damage you might be doing to me, my family and my business. For you to lie about what I said, in my view, totally destroys your credibility regarding everything else you write on this blog including your attacks on Fox Nation. I’ve demonstrated that your readers cannot trust you to provide honest, trustworthy information. I NEVER claimed I was a “close friend” of young Obama. NEVER.
ANOTHER RESPONSE TO MARK AND SLARTBARTFEST:
Come on. The dictionary definition shows I was on the mark using the world confidant in the sense that I considered young Obama a political associate in the larger political fight.
I think the public agrees that I’ve proven both Slartibartfast and Mark to be liars, liars who are willing to make up quotes and claims that I have supposedly asserted through my own language.
Frankly, I think that is libelous. Even as a public figure, I know that you are not supposed to knowingly lie about me in a highly visible public form.
Making up false quotes or claims strikes me as a violation of law. Whatever the faults of Fox News, they have never made up a quote and claimed I said it. Fox News has never asserted that I claimed something which I did not.
Fox News does not assert that I ever said or claimed I was a "close friend" of young Obama. Mark does. That is why Mark is a hypocrit. Slartibartfest, a Ph.D. in math from Duke University, has also been caught asserting I said I was "the best graduate student in the nation," but now he cannot prove I ever said either. (If you want to check out Kevin Kesseler "Slartibartfest" Kesseler's one page website, then you can see it here at Bespoke Modeling.) This is typical for the left. You don’t care how much you lie or who you hurt as long as you are protecting President Obama.
John C. Drew, Ph.D. is an award-winning political scientist.
I'm honored to announce I was just interviewed by Pulitzer Prize winning historian, David J. Garrow, even though I suspect that anyone who stepped foot on the Occidental College campus and met young Obama between 1979-1981 has received a similar visit.
In my case, it was a particularly humbling experience. Right now, I feel like I endured a trip to the dentist. When I first heard from Prof. Garrow by e-mail I was not sure it was really him. I checked out some of his YouTube videos and then asked him to give me a call so I could be sure I was talking to the real guy and not some deranged Occupy Wall Street (OWS) protester.
At first, I was not certain it was a good idea to speak to him or not. I called around to some of my friends and quickly figured out that although Garrow is a liberal he does have a reputation for doing fair and accurate historical work. In Bearing the Cross, for example, he reported on how Martin Luther King, Jr. cheated on his wife and the impact that FBI disclosures of this information impacted the last three years of King's life.
Garrow taped his interview of me. My understanding is that nothing I said will be published until President Obama is out of office.
Nevertheless, it is not often that you meet with a presidential historian and I was a little startled by the experience. To start off, I was surprisingly nervous. I almost dumped a glass of ice tea on him. It was also surprisingly unpleasant. I prepped for the interview by sorting through old photographs and rereading about 30 old notes and letters from the 1980-1981 era of my life. It was a shocking reminder of the emotional immaturity of my early 20's. I confessed to one of my friends, for example, that my ratings as an instructor in the political science department at Cornell University had improved since the last semester because I had stopped laughing out loud at the students who said stupid things.
I also found out that presidential historians have an awkward role in informing people of the deaths of those who used to be in their social circles. In my case, I discovered that one of the Occidental College radical leaders I knew, Gary Chapman, 58, had died of a heart attack last December. I had mentioned Chapman as a prominent leader of the student anti-apartheid movement in Meeting Young Obama earlier this year.
Nevertheless, Garrow made it pleasant to reminisce about old friends and to learn who got married to who, who succeeded in life, and who crashed and burned in a spectacular fashion. My attitude, of course, is that I'm going to be deceased for a lot longer than I have lived and consequently I provided him with my complete honesty - flaws and all.
At a certain point, I have decided, you can no longer feel embarrassment for the things you have done, you can only expect future generations will learn from your mistakes.
John C. Drew, Ph.D. is an award-winning political scientist.
On the heels of my recent talk before the San Clemente Republican Women's Federated club, I learned that I was the recipient of another bizarre personal attack by Anna Stoddard, the elderly error-prone Oh For Goodness Sake (OFGS) blogger.
In this case, our expatriate, faux journalist completely misreads the work of liberal journalist David Remnick in the The Bridge. Ms. Stoddard, for example, makes the tactical mistake of relying on the testimony of Mohammed Hasan Chandoo to refute my face-to-face observations of young Obama's revolutionary fervor.
What Stoddard forgets is that in Remnick's book, Chandoo admits to being a Marxist. Chandoo's girlfriend Margot Mifflin has reported that Chandoo was a Marxist. Moreover, I can report to you that Chandoo was a Marxist. It strikes me as delusional to assume that Chandoo - who really was Obama's sophomore year roommate - can be trusted to disconfirm young Obama's commitment to extremist ideology.
For a great new article that puts young Obama's Marxist philosophy into a proper cultural context, please check out Micheal Leahy's just published article regarding the Indonesian roots of President Obama's radical perspective, "Obama's New Nationalism More Sukarno Than Teddy Roosevelt."
Accordingly, it strikes me as both silly and rather insane for Anna Stoddard to rely on Chandoo's comments in the Feburary 2010 piece by Ronald Kessler regarding my debate with young Obama as credible evidence that Obama was not a Marxist.
Give me a break!
FBI chronicler Ron Kessler is so cool that he even catches Chandoo lying over the course of his interview with Kessler regarding how frequently Chandoo has seen Obama since he has been in office. The irony of the Kessler story is that Chandoo tries to undercut my report while revealing himself to be a less than honest resource.
The mistaken prone Stoddard also forgets that Obama friend Wahid Hamid also confirmed that young Obama's friends where Marxist socialists and that Obama was in sync with them ideologically. This, of course, implies that both Chandoo and Obama were Marxists at Occidental College and verifies my comments to Kessler, two months prior to the publication of The Bridge, asserting that young Obama held to a radical, revolutionary Marxist-Leninist perspective.
During my time with young Obama I got to see a real revolutionary face-to-face. I engaged in a strenuous debate with Obama that was witnessed by both Caroline Boss and Mohammed Hasan Chandoo. It was a debate in which I meant to change young Obama's world view by giving him more accurate information about the real world of international politics and social change.
Absolutely no one else has come close to describing the thinking of young Obama in the vivid detail I have provided in my earlier comments and articles at American Thinker. I was a student of Marxist economics and political science at the time I debated young Obama. I do not see how I could have been mistaken about his level of intellectual development regarding the changing field of Marxist socialist theory in the early 1980s.
Since my story has come out, it has helped spark a broad range of new Obama literature and has been featured in books by Michael Savage, Paul Kengor, Stanley Kurtz and Jack Cashill. In 2008, I was a lonely, isolated voice seeking to save the nation from a presidential candidate who was too radical and too dishonest to serve our country properly and to lead us to economic prosperity. In 2012, however, it is not just me anymore. Opposition researchers will have many articles and books to review to understand the depth of the connections that link young Obama to radical Marxist thought all the way through Frank Marshall Davis, to me, to Alice Palmer and eventually to our nation's number one unrepentant terrorist, Bill Ayers.
It is about time that the American people woke up to the frightening reality that President Obama has been holding us back and harming our progress by applying sort of silly and ineffective measures that could only please a Soviet Union planning bureaucrat.
John C. Drew, Ph.D. is an award-winning political scientist.
I thought I should share with you the news that my story on meeting young, Marxist Obama has finally made it to the pages of Fox Nation. In the picture below, I'm speaking on "Why Barack Obama's Past Is More Important Than His Future" at the San Clemente Republican Women's Federated meeting on December 14, 2011.
The most prominent liberal response comes from an unnamed blogger, posting at No More Mister Nice Blog. For a less thoughtful attack, see this piece at News Corpse.
It looks like the best the left can do is argue that I did not see Obama frequently enough to get an accurate view of his ideological beliefs as a sophomore at Occidental College. My view, however, is that I have been vindicated by the subsequent Obama literature. After all, a lot of liberals attacked my story on young Obama's ideological extremism in 2008. Today, however, the Obama literature has moved much closer to my take on young Obama as a Marxist socialist than the technocratic take offered by James Kloppenberg in Reading Obama.
I replied to "Steve" at No More Mister Nice Blog with these comments:
I noticed your article discussing my take on young Obama's ideology was gaining traction on the Internet. I thought it would be a good idea for you to be aware of my responses to the serious charges you level in your article.
All in all, I find it difficult to understand why reasonable people don't accept my story after David Remnick published The Bridge. It seems perfectly clear to me that the Obama literature has moved in the direction I indicated was correct instead of the direction suggested by Prof. Kloppenberg in his book, Reading Obama.
My take on young Obama has also been supported by substantial research done by Stanley Kurtz in his book, Radical-In-Chief and by Jack Cashill's Deconstructing Obama. Given the large number of publications that are consistent with my take on young Obama's ideological extremism, I would expect bloggers like you to confront the evidence and not engage in abusive ad hominem attacks. Please feel free to print this in your blog if it is helpful to you and your readers.
The end of the story was priceless since "Steve" wrote back only to say: "I have nothing to say to anyone who uses "research" and "Jack Cashill" in the same sentence. Don't bother me again. You're an idiot."
All in all, I think Obama is in trouble. I don't think it is plausible to suggest I was mistaken about young Obama's extremist ideology.
John C. Drew, Ph.D. is an award-winning political scientist.
I pulled together the highlights of the talk I gave at the Capistrano Republican Women's Federated Club on April 22, 2011. This was the first time I ever gave this talk. As you will see, the audience is very supportive and attentive.
After watching myself on this video tape, I'm reminded why it is important for political leaders to view their tapes as part of their effort to improve their presentations.
John C. Drew, Ph.D. is an award-winning political scientist.
Last month, I had a rare opportunity to go back to my roots as a political scientist during a brief presentation on politics and ideology at my undergraduate institution - Occidental College. I had been invited to share my memories of young President Obama by political science Professor Caroline Heldman. As you may know, Heldman is a frequent representative of liberal opinion on the Sean Hannity, Mike Huckabee and Bill O'Reilly shows on FOX News.
Personally, I was startled by how different Heldman was behind-the-scenes with me compared what I had expected her to be like after watching her on FOX News.
She was kind, understanding and quite generous with her time. She read my full profile to the students in her class and even allowed a documentary filmmaker, J.D. Wilcox, to record my remarks. As I understand it, my brief story on meeting young Barack Obama will be premiered at the GI Film Festival in May 2012.
For a quick review of Dr. Heldman's performances on FOX News programs, see the video above. My experience in Dr. Heldman's classroom reminded me that one of the secrets of success in grant writing is to be a good, kindly person behind-the-scenes, even as you are doing all you can to beat the competition in your grant application. More than ever before, I think successful careers in grant writing and television require tact, forbearance and thoughtfulness. It was a good idea for me to get outside my comfort zone last month and watch a true professional in action. The good news, in the end, is that I'm in telephone or e-mail contact with a lot of the people I see on the Sean Hannity, Bill O'Reilly or Mike Huckabee shows. I'm guessing it is only a matter of time before my story on meeting the young Marxist socialist Barack Obama receives national-level media attention.
John C. Drew, Ph.D. is an award-winning political scientist.
I grew up poor and I thought it was unfair for me to be held back simply because of the mistakes of my parents. It drove me nuts, for example, to think that kids less intelligent, hard-working, and moral than me enjoyed vacations in Europe while I lived in a home with raw sewage in the backyard. I thought Marxist socialism would give young people in similar situations a more equal opportunity to enjoy the good things in life.
In retrospect, however, I didn't have anyone in my life to explain compound interest, or how to write a business plan, or how to apply computer technology to the most interesting questions. I think if my family had been part of a contemporary Christian church, then I would have had my questions answered and I would have made better decisions.
I got a track scholarship to attend Occidental College in Los Angeles. All the folks around me at Oxy seemed to think the best thing on earth that you could do with your life was to become a college professor. So I went with the program. I got a scholarship to attend graduate school where I got to study with the some of the best professors in the nation in American government and public policy.
My commitment to Marxist socialist thought, however, gradually came to an end by the summer of 1982 when I began to notice that there was a larger spiritual world which did not fit the materialistic atheist models of modern social science. It was a world of intuition, coincidence, and syncronicity which Marxism saw as only an illusion used to lubricate the workings of capitalist exploitation. I also figured out that my empathy for others was not a weakness...it was an extremely useful tool for generating guesses about how the world really worked.
As I became more spiritual I also started to have an unusual amount of success intellectually and academically. My thinking, writing, and observations knit together and I started to attract positive attention with my research on the causes and timing of welfare programs in the U.S.
In my case, I remember where I was the exact moment I realized I no longer believed in the ideals of Communism: I was walking through the basement of McGraw Hall at Cornell University in September 1983. I had just finished an argument with my radical thesis advisor. As I recall I began to believe that the problems associated with child abuse and neglect might be easily fixed through the use of European-style visiting nurse program. As best I can recall, my thesis advisor saw child abuse as a larger problem caused by the necessity to invest in the reproduction of social capital under conditions in which children were mistakenly seen as elements of private property as part of the larger cultural and legal structures which maintain the reproduction of oppressive class conflict. The solution to child abuse, in his model, would involve paying attention to much greater issues involving the distribution of power and wealth in a modern industrialized society. (Or something like that...) Whatever the details of that argument, I remember the encounter left me thinking he was ideologically blinded and alarmingly out-of-touch with reality.
In my research, I had inadvertantly discovered a bizarre failing in modern political science. I was able to show that much of what we consider our modern America - schools, parks, Boy Scout and Girl Scout programs, and aid for families with dependent children - was largely a consequence of the earlier effort to enforce child labor laws. I know this sounds completely obvious...but the social science development literature of the 1960s and 1970s had been written without any reference to the role of child labor law enforcement as a key step in the modernization process.
Based on my historical research, I disconfirmed the Marxist hypothesis that welfare programs arose out of class struggle. My research showed they arose as an unintended consequence of the completely independent prior decision to stop child labor.
I ended up teaching at Williams College in MA, the nation's top rated liberal arts college. I won an award from the American Political Science Association for my thesis. It is now published in book form.
Today, I'm married. I'm proud that I attend a Baptist Church that overlooks the Pacific Ocean. I have my own management consulting business. Right at this moment, I'm struggling to get up to speed on this new social networking technology...and I'm excited that it provides a way to get around the mainstream media.
John C. Drew, Ph.D. is an award-winning political scientist.
Last year, I was surprised - and somewhat honored - to see that Anna Stoddard the blogger at "Oh, For Goodness Sake" put together a biography on me. The article is here
I thought this forum was a good place to republish a public response to the issues raised by the article by Stoddard, an elderly retiree from New York now living in Mexico. For my immediate, same day, reaction to Stoddard's error-filled article see my story at Patriot Action Net.
The first thing to say is that I was Ann Coulter's T.A. which means I was responsible for grading her papers, grading her exams, and leading her small group discussion sections. I was actually working for her American government professor, Theodore J. Lowi. So, I was actually Lowi's teaching assistant and Coulter was one of my very first students. I think she can also communicate how she saw me evolve from being a young radical extremist into a being a moderate, non-Marxist social scientist. Poor Anna Stoddard, writing in Oh, For Goodness Sake, cannot seem to figure this out and never modified the text even as I brought this issue to her attention almost immediately after she first wrote her article.
(Literally, I called this error to her attention on the same day she wrote this awful smear job, but she did not even acknowledge this bizarre error until 9/19/2011.)
Second, I really was never rejected for tenure as Ms. Stoddard indicates in Oh, For Goodness Sake. The situation was worse than that. The folks at Williams took me off the tenure track in 1989 and really did not even let me compete for tenure. Their story is that my research was sub-par. The irony, of course, is that a month or so later I won the William Anderson Award from the American Political Science Association for the best doctoral dissertation in the nation in my field. My story is that they were hostile to me because I was a man, Armenian-American, conservative and quite vocal in my complaints against affirmative action and those who doubted the wisdom of welfare reform.
The larger issue raised by Anna Stoddard in Oh, For Goodness Sake is my relationship with Obama. In truth, I only met Obama a handful of times. What is missing, however, is that Obama and I were part of an intense cultural sub-group due to our connections at Occidental College. My knowledge of him was built, in part, through my prior knowledge of Mohammed Hasan Chandoo, Caroline Boss, and others - the young people who were active in campus politics driven by the Democrat Socialist Alliance at Occidental College. I took my status as a Marxist revolutionary thinker very seriously...and so did he. It not a small deal to live your life anticipating the Marxist revolution was coming down the road. The intensitiy of Obama's commitment to Marxism is why my girlfriend could refer to him as "one of us."
As she writes in Oh, For Goodness Sake, Stoddard also misses that I knew the Marxist professors Obama talks about in Dreams of My Father and I was dating the various structural feminists too. I knew the same foreign students and anti-apartheid activists.
By all accounts, my wife and I are taking grave risks because of my willingness to discuss Obama's early Marxist socialist ideology. If Anna Stoddard and her "Oh, For Goodness Sake" blog is the best that liberal Democrats can do to discredit my story, then I think I can stand up to anything thrown at me by http://www.attackwatch.com/ Seriously, we are okay. We have seen no threats against us. Why? I think most Republicans already believed Obama was a Marxist and most Democrats do not think it is a bad thing in the first place.
Nevertheless, I'm still frustrated and puzzled by why I could not get this story into the media sooner. If it were not for Newsmax, Breitbart TV and talk radio, then I'm not sure it ever would have gotten to the general public. Nevertheless, I learned in politics that it is important to respond immediately when you are under attack by an untruthful, error-prone person like Anna Stoddard writing in Oh, For Goodness Sake.
John C. Drew, Ph.D. is an award-winning political scientist.
