Bucknell’s “Young Hipublicans” and the
New York Times.
This is in regards to Paul Beston’s very objectionable “Once
More, With Sneering.” The NYT finally did something
good, and he can’t seem to see that. The following are quotations
from the article and my rejoinders. I was featured in the New
York Times article
about which Beston wrote.
“[Story author John] Colapinto has a grudging admiration for
them.”
Not true —John has a genuine, heartfelt admiration for us,
which is evident if you meet him. Did you see the stuff he said
about me on Fox?!
“Unfortunately though, Charles Mitchell isn’t kidding, and so
Colapinto is forced to descend from his Mount Olympus of faux
detachment.”
Give me a break — John’s “the temptation is to assume he’s
kidding” sentence was a joke. It’s about my $@#$()*+&*(# room,
and I’m amused!
“In the usual sidewinding, subtle manner of Times
journalism, Colapinto consistently sounds warnings about these
young conservatives the way one might expect if he were writing
about, say, student members of the Aryan Nation.”
Not even close …
“Colapinto’s main issue with campus conservatives is his
contention that they are merely the mouthpieces, if not the pod
people, of conservative think tanks and leadership groups.”
This entire argument (much of the piece) is just patently untrue
—John does not think that! Maybe he didn’t make it clear enough in
the article — and he did, beings that he was TRYING TO GET THE
NEW YORK TIMES TO PUBLISH A HIGHLY COMPLEMENTARY PORTRAIT
OF SOME RIGHTIES, have to devote a lot of words to the theory —
but his thesis is precisely the opposite. It’s unfortunate that
this writer can’t see that, and it makes our movement look like a
bunch of crybabies.
“The young male conservatives are bad enough, but women
conservatives bewilder Colapinto even more.”
No, they don’t — the discussion of this matter was something
John was ORDERED TO PUT IN BY A FEMALE, LIBERAL EDITOR AT THE
MAGAZINE.
“He was complimentary and gracious; you would never get the idea
that this is the writer who alleges that the young conservatives
are nothing but parrots for a well-funded, well-oiled rightwing
machine out to conquer the American university.”
BECAUSE HE DOESN’T THINK THAT!
“It’s unlikely Charles Mitchell and his colleagues have failed
to see through Colapinto’s hot and cold routine.”
No, unfortunately, Paul Beston is looking a gift horse in the
mouth, failing to even correctly discern the author’s thesis,
blinded by the author’s left politics and certain details he was
obliged to include to secure the approval of the Imperial
NYT’s Editors.
In my view, David Horowitz and Andrew Sullivan had it right —
this thing was a gift. Everyone is right that it was not perfect,
but the allegation that it was a “hatchet job,” or that it painted
us as pawns of the Beltway VRWC, or Jonah Goldberg’s statement that
“to say that these kids actually read, research and think on their
own, rather than get ‘talking points’ from Karl Rove would have
undermined the author’s thesis and make the piece far less
attractive to the Times” is really not accurate. Well, I
take that back — the part about the Times is correct, but
the part about John is not.
I know that it will be easy to write this off as some young kid
who thinks he knows it all but got duped is strong, but I ask you
not to. When we first heard that the NYT was interested in
us, we thought the same sort of stuff — it’ll be a hatchet job,
etc., but it will get our name out there. That didn’t happen. John
truly, genuinely, honestly likes and respects us. Maybe he wasn’t
clear enough in the article, but he does not see us as
pawns of LI, CN, ISI, etc. Now, granted, he had to discuss such
allegations, and did so at length. And granted, he is not a
conservative, and that showed. But what did anyone expect? The
important part is not that John is liberal or that they quoted
David Brock. The important part is that John rejected the
usual liberal crap and painted a very complimentary picture of us.
In order to do so and have the NYT print it, he had to
jump through the usual hoops — quoting Brock, probing the Beltway
groups, asking the girls (he was clearly embarrassed that he was
ordered to do this) how they squared being female and conservative,
etc. But if you could have seen the way he was acting when he was
around us, you’d understand — there’s no way to fake the way he
was acting and the way I really believe he feels about us. The man
respects us. He probably went into it thinking we were weirdoes,
but came out of it begging me to take him shooting, enjoying said
shooting, and completely rejecting the criticisms of the
Bucknell administration, the leftist race-baiters on campus, the
decriers of LI/CN/ISI, etc. That, in my view, is notable, and for
the Right to miss it while decrying his frequent use of
“right-wing” and other terms is frankly looking a gift horse in the
mouth.
Mr. Beston owes John an apology, and he owes the rest of us in
the movement one, too, for making us look like a bunch of rich,
whiny brats (which is just how the Left would like to paint
us).
— Charles Mitchell
President
Bucknell University Conservatives Club
Lewisburg, PA
