Has anyone heard any more details about this? I caught this on “The O’Rielly Factor” last night and haven’t seen any other source. O’Rielly reported that a New York Times reporter was giving a graduation speech at a college in Illinois and went off the deep end. He supposedly said that the military is full of “boys from places like Mississippi and Arkansas who just want the money” and other anti-war leftist drivel. :rolleyes: Supposedly, he was shouted down by the crowd and was told told to wrap up his speech by the college president. I’ve searched the internet for more info and have come up empty.
I tried that hard to find CNN news and discovered this
I checked the website for the local NBC affiliate and found an extremely condensed version of the CNN link that wring provided.
I can’t say I’m surprised; Rockford is known around here as a rather conservative town, and I doubt an anti-war speech, inflammatory content or not, would have gone over well there.
Here’s a local article with pretty good detail. This link has a link to an audio of Hedges’s speech, which I am listening to right now.
Incidentally, this individual has also wrtitten a 2001article for Harpers magazine filled with anti-Israel lies. Note especially #5, which deserves a Pit thread of its own.
It boggles the mind that this liar is a New York Times journalist with a Pulitzer Prize to his credit.
Here’s a transcript of the speech, btw.
http://www.rrstar.com/localnews/your_community/rockford/0521hedgesspeech.shtml
An employee of the New York Times would make up facts in a news story? Shocking! 
Apparently Jayson Blair is setting the standard there.
Earlier today the Drudge report had a link to the actual audio. It was frustrating to listen to to say the least.
The mike was cut a couple of times. Even the other professors and school officials on stage understood that this guy was way out of line. You could hear them saying desparaging comments towards the end.
Here is a link with some more info.
This idiot must have decided that the NYT didn’t already have enough egg on it’s face. His comments were completely out of place at that forum. I wouldn’t want my graduation ruined and would have reacted the same way as the protesting students did by booing.
My question is this…did Hedges really think that the audience would be receptive to his speech? Did he have visions of rapt young people hanging on his every word and nodding reverently? If so he is deluded to the point of needing medical intervention. Or perhaps he thought that his views are so important and his analysis so incisive and groundbreaking that he couldn’t let an opportunity to air them to a captive audience go by. If so, he is arrogant. Normally uninformed leftist drivel amuses me. I just mentally pat them on the head like the intellectual children they are and move on. But Hedges crossed the line. He made was should have been a joyous time for all present awkward and controversial. The tragedy is that I’m sure he is unrepentant. He probably thinks that he “raised awareness” and therefore deserves praise. I would protest his conduct to the New York Times, but his ideological bretheren there would just try to sooth me with words and then mock me when I hung up the phone.
From the evidence that I have seen so far, the reporter is a tool. What I can’t understand is why he was invited to speak at that particular university. Didn’t they know about his worldview? The fact that some students came prepared with air horns leads me to believe that they did. The reporter, tool that he is, was just stating his views inappropriately. The bigger transgression was made by whomever invited this guy in the first place.
Haj
I hate it when people do this. Incidentally, this is by no means exclusively a liberal thing – politicians of all flavors are constantly using graduation ceremonies as political platforms to push their policies (e.g. Bush at the University of South Carolina in 2001). It pisses me off – hold a frickin’ press conference, write a book, whatever. Don’t hijack these students’ celebration.
What the hell happened to the human resource department of the New York Times? Why do they hire these people? I used to respect that organization as a sober, competent newspaper - worthy of accolades. Now they are a living punchline.
I found this quote in a story on the controversey in the Rockford newspaper.
“I didn’t expect that. How can you expect to have anyone climb on stage and turn your mike off,” Hedges said Tuesday during a telephone interview. “Watching it in my own country is heartbreaking.”
No, idiot. What’s heartbreaking is the fact that you shit all over a day that hundreds of people worked for for years. You just had to have the spotlight so you could enlighten us lesser intellectual lights. And now you are “heartbroken” because reality slapped you in the face. Welcome to reality, you leftist twit.
There is a place and a time for things and this was not the appropriate place or time. The guy is an asshole which just shows assholes come in all colors.
from the link I provided (from CNN, that most difficult to locate source of news) a quote from the reporter:
The person who hired him for the commencement speech should be the person vilified here (IMHO). This person was hired to give a speech. Did they not discuss what topic the speech would be on? as noted by Giraffe, it’s pretty traditional that speakers will speak about their own views/lives/ideas at commencements. Why on earth would a conservative place hire some one w/noted liberal stance and a book to plug to talk at their commencement?
Michigan State U - in East Lansing, more liberal than not, I’d be astonished if they hired Charleton HEston to speak. But not at all surprised at CH should he decide to speak about 2nd amendmant issues etc.
The CNN link doesn’t make the speech sound that off-base. If he was yammering about piranhas etc. he deserved to hear some booing.
Regardless of how much of an idiot he is, cutting off his microphone and forcing the speech to be cut short was poor behavior to be engaged in, especially at a university.
C’mon kids, you’ll be out in the safe old bland world soon enough.
I agree with just about everything you said, Evil One. Though his remarks were entirely out of place, unfortunately this reporter and his colleagues will now probably present him as a victim of censorship. Maybe he even upped his rhetoric a notch hoping to become just this sort of a “martyr.”
And though the reporter showed himself to be a biased demagogue, the Times will probably defend his ability to keep writing “unbiased” coverage of events.
Why not? Everyone in the newsroom has an opinion, and all of them are free to share their opinion with others. There is no reason to suspect that he is unable to objectively report the news simply because he happens to have an opinion on the war.
We need guys like this to tell kids the truth. Anyone that booed should be whipped and expelled.
You have GOT to be kidding.
Yes. I’m being hyperbolic. I just don’t think there’s anything particularly admirable about booing someone who disagrees with you.