Dayside: Pot Calling the Kettle Black
Reported by Janie - March 3, 2006
On Dayside yesterday, the hosts decided to broach the issue of the Colorado school teacher that compared quotes made by George Bush to those of Adolf Hitler. During the brief segment the hosts interviewed Fox Correspondent Carol McKinley, all of whom displayed the same unfair and unbalanced attitude they were accusing the teacher of.
Juliet Huddy: "A Colorado teacher is on paid leave after pointing out quote "eerie similarities between President Bush and Hitler", and Hitler's statements, things he said in the past."
Mike Jerrick: "The teachers comments were recorded by a student who tapes lectures to help him with his notes everyday in class."
CM: "Well, some people here in the Denver area, this is an Aurora school, by the way, some people are calling him a hero for having the guts to bring this to light. Those are mostly parents. There are others, mostly his class mates, who are calling him a snitch. As for Sean though, he says he doesn't want his teacher fired, but he does want him to learn from this."
They then played a clip of the teacher's statements from the student's recording.
Teacher: "He started off his speech by talking about how America should be the country that dominates the world. That we have been blessed, essentially by God, to have the most civilized, most advanced, best system, and that it's our duty as citizens to use the military to go out into the world and make the world like us. Sounds a lot like the things Adolf Hitler used to say. We're the only ones who are right, everyone else is backwards and it's our job to conquer the world and make sure they all live just like we want them to. Now, I'm not saying that Bush and Hitler are exactly the same, obviously they're not, ok? But there are some eerie similarities to the tones that they use. They are very ethnocentric."
Comment: I'm sorry, but I'm not clear on where the controversy is. Why is it wrong, in a nation with free speech rights, to make the OBVIOUS connection between comments made by our current President, and Adolf Hitler.
Let's have a little quiz. I'll list quotes, and you guess who made the statement.
1.) "Strength lies not in defence but in attack"
"My attitude is you take pre-emptive action in order to protect the _____ people, that you act in order to make this country secure."
2) " By the skillful and sustained use of propaganda, one can make a people see even heaven as hell or an extremely wretched life as paradise"
"See, in my line of work, you got to keep repeating things over and over and over again for the truth to sink in...to kind of catapult the propaganda".
3) "God told me to strike at 足足_____ and I struck them, and then he instructed me to strike at _____, which I did, and now I am determined to solve the problem in the ______. If you help me I will act, and if not, the elections will come and I will have to focus on them."
"I believe today that my conduct is in accordance with the will of the Almighty Creator."
Oh wait, there is a big difference. One speaks eloquently, while the other doesn't have a firm grasp on his own language!
McKinley continued, "Jay Bennish teachers 10th grade Geography and now he could be in trouble for those statements. We talked with Sean Allen a little earlier today, he's taking the day off from school because this has been such a tumultuous experience for him, he wants things to die down. Here's what he had to say."
SA: "I think he's trying to get kids to think his way. He's giving his biased opinion and treating that as fact. So, he's really promoting ignorance and close-mindedness, which is the exact opposite of what he's saying he's doing."
Comment: What precisely makes the teacher's opinion biased? If the president makes statements that are similar to Hitler's, and the teacher can provide proof, that is not the fault of the teacher for pointing that out. Truth is not biased, but what the student is accusing the teacher of, most certainly is. Just because you don't like what someone is saying, does not make it false.
CM: "There was a two-hour walk out at Overland HS this morning, kids are now back in class, but the Cherry Creek school distract is looking into this. They already say there's been a breach of policy by these statements. Now, Bennish is on administrative leave while this internal investigation is going on."
Comment: While McKinley mentions there was a student walk out, she does not mention that the students were walking out in support of Bennish.
The segment concluded with Huddy questioning why a Geography teacher was teaching about politics, which was shocking since most Geography classes do include political history, as politics changes geographical borders consistently, especially in the case of Hitler and his political-based quest to conquer other lands.
There was no one invited on the show to counter Fox's take on the story, making the hosts of Dayside just as biased as they were claiming the teacher is.
