The left-wing attack on the John Jay study proves once again that art critic Harold Rosenberg was exactly right to say that liberals represent a “herd of independent minds.” Ever since the New York Times criticized the study as the “blame Woodstock” report, the herd swung into high gear.
• Tony Auth labeled his cartoon “It Was The Sixties, Man”
• A Boston Globe writer titled her piece, “Blame it on the ‘60s, Man”
• Jon Carroll branded his article, “The ‘60s Made Them Do It”
• A Canadian writer said, “Church Study Blames Swinging Sixties”
• ReligionDispatches indicted the Church for “Blame the Sixties” rationale
• Veteran Church-basher Marci Hamilton said the Church was guilty of “blaming the Sixties”
• Rabbi Shmuley Boteach said the Church blames “the 1960s”
• Mark Silk said the Church invokes the “Woodstock” excuse
• Sally Quinn’s brother, Wilson, slammed the Church for “Blame the Hippies” excuse
• A Cincinnati writer said the Church blames “dirty hippies”
• A New Haven writer said the Church blames “hippies”
• A Minnesota writer said the Church blames Jefferson Airplane
• A Florida writer argued the Church blames Janis Joplin
However, top honors go to the Minneapolis Star-Tribune for falsely claiming, “In page after page, the report also accuses the news media of misrepresenting the crisis.” This is utter nonsense. Mary Sanchez of theKansas City Star showed her brilliance by criticizing the study for not finding a “single cause.” She needs to take Sociology 101.
None of these critics is a social scientist, and few, if any, give evidence of actually having read the report. But that’s what we would expect from a “herd of independent minds.”
