Friday, July 22, 2005

#11-40 of the people screwing up America

I thought I would take a stab at learning about the next 30 people who Bernard Goldberg believes is "Screwing Up America." And a fine group it is, with lots of CBS News employees, several professors and Democratic Congressmen, two editorial cartoonist, two talk show hosts, an NBA player and a former Saturday Night Live comedian! Hide the women and children! There are some choices of people I agree with on this section of the list, including #21 Roy Moore, #25 James Kopp, and to a lesser extent #31 Maury Povich and #32 Jerry Springer. This list has also given me insight into some great organizations and initiatives I've never heard of, including People for the American Way, Campaign for America's Future, Democracy for America, The Open Society Institute, Common Cause and Democracy 21.

  1. Noam Chomsky, MIT professor, linguist, author
  2. Dan Rather, former CBS News anchor, correspondent for 60 Minutes, Emmy and Peabody Award winner, author
  3. Andrew Heyward, President, CBS News
  4. Mary Mapes , former CBS News producer of "Rather-Gate" piece (man, this guy has got it bad against his former employer!)
  5. Ted Rall, syndicated editorial cartoonist and columnist (and one of my favorites!)
  6. John Edwards, former Democratic Senator from North Carolina, Vice Presidential Candidate 2004, director of the University of North Carolina Center on Poverty, Work and Opportunity
  7. Al Sharpton, minister, race activist, unsuccessful Democratic presidential candidate
  8. Al Gore, former Democratic Senator from Tennessee, former Vice President, Presidential Candidate 2000
  9. George Soros, founder of Open Society Institute, author
  10. Howard Dean, Chairman of Democratic Party, Chairman of Democracy for America, former Governor of Vermont
  11. "Judge" Roy Moore, former Chief Justice of the Alabama Supreme Court who was removed from office after refusing to abide by US Supreme Court order to remove a 10 Commandments Display from the grounds of the Alabama Judicial Building, founder of Foundation for Moral Law, and apparently a poet! (ok, this one I agree with)
  12. Michael Newdow, in contrast to Mr. Moore above, Mr. Newdow is an atheist and leading advocate to restore the Pledge of Allegiance to its original 1892 wording which did not include "Under God"
  13. The Unknown American Terrorist, the book focuses on the Earth Liberation Front
  14. Lee Bollinger, President of Columbia University, author of books on freedom of speech
  15. James Kopp, convicted murderer of abortion doctors (Ok, I agree with this one too)
  16. Dr. Martin Haskell, abortion doctor, key figure in the so-called "partial birth abortion" debate
  17. Paul Begala, political commentator on CNN, co-host of Inside Politics, author, Begala and his partner James Carville (who I'm surprise didn't make this list) helped get Bill Clinton elected, the Democtraic Karl Rove without the treason
  18. Julian Bond, Executive Chairman of the NAACP, founding member of SNCC (you've got to be kidding me!)
  19. John Green, political science professor at the University of Akron and Director of the Bliss Institute of Applied Politics, has done extensive polling of voters and studies of religious voting behaviors
  20. Latrell Sprewell, NBA player
  21. Maury Povich, trash TV talk show host
  22. Jerry Springer, trash TV talk show host, former Mayor of Cincinnati! (OK, I can't necessarily disagree with the last two)
  23. Bob Shrum, Democratic speech writer and election consultant
  24. Bill Moyers, journalist, former Deputy Director of the Peace Corps, founder of Public Affairs Television
  25. Jeff Danziger, editorial cartoonist
  26. Nancy Hopkins, geneticist, MIT biology professor, member of the American Academy of Arts and Sciences, she's apparently on this list merely for a comment she made disagreeing with Harvard President Lawrence H. Summers when he said that there were inherent differences between men and women when it came to their aptitude to the hard sciences
  27. Al Franken, comedian, author, former Saturday Night Live cast member, Air America Radio talk show host
  28. Jim McDermott, Democratic Congressman from Washington state, psychiatrist, naval veteran, Foreign Service psychiatrist
  29. Peter Singer, Princeton University ethics professor, leading figure in the animal rights and right-to-die movements, author
  30. Scott Harshbarger, former president of Common Cause and Democracy 21, voter advocate and government reform organizations

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