Wednesday, July 30, 2014

The Texas Scalawag Runneth at the Mouth

Over on Simpson's blog, Texas Scalawag Andy Hall sez this about what I'm calling the T-shirt incident at Washington and Lee on Saturday:
"The information from W&L doesn’t corroborate any of the details alleged by the SCV. The Confederate Heritage crowd has a history of exaggerating claims, staging confrontations, or telling stories that were made up entirely from whole cloth. They’ve shown themselves over and over again to be untrustworthy in telling a full and complete story, and people are entirely justified in being skeptical of any story of this sort that they propagate."
What details?

It would be nice if he would have linked to whatever "details alleged by the SCV" he's talking about, because what I've found is certainly corroborated by W&L's statement. You can read both in their entirety here, but now I want to compare the SCV's description of what happened with W&L's description -- and let you be the judge of just how truthful Andy Hall's accusation is.

In fact, the SCV's description of what happened consists entirely of a condensed version of the account written by the teenaged boy.

The overall statement does add that some visitors reported to the SCV that they had been told they had to remove any likeness of Robert E. Lee in order to enter the campus, and that the University had blocked the main roads to other destinations in Lexington. But those are peripheral to the main issue (the incident with the teen boy, for which they're asking an apology) and do not constitute details about it. Besides, that W&L's statement did not address these does not necessarily mean they did not happen.

Here's what the SCV reported about the T-shirt incident itself.
The boy had attended the rally hosted by the SCV and gave the following account of his mistreatment in his own words: [photo attached]

"Since it was my first time in Lexington I wanted to see the Lee Chapel and the grave of Lee's horse Traveller. As I began to head for the Lee Chapel, a [campus] Police Officer stopped me and said that I could not enter the campus property with my Battle Flag or any images of Confederate Flags on any of my possessions including my clothing. I really wanted to pay my respects to General Lee and Traveller so I had to turn my shirt inside-out, take off my hat, and take off my badge."
Here's what W&L said about it:
According to our Office of Public Safety, our officers reported four occasions when they interacted with individuals who were participating in the July 26 rally sponsored by the Sons of Confederate Veterans in downtown Lexington.

The officers characterized all of these interactions as respectful. They did not record names or ages of any of the individuals.

In each instance, the officers requested individuals not to carry Confederate flags or to wear attire with Confederate emblems on the campus. The individuals all complied with these requests.
The rest of W&L's statement offers some half-baked, keister-covering excuses for the restrictions ("We wuz skeered and sore afraid,") but none of it denies or even disagrees with the SCV's report of the incident.

If Andy's talking about some OTHER SCV statements and OTHER W&L responses, he needs to identify them, because the ones every one knows about -- the ones Levin linked to -- do not support Andy 's contention.

Incidentally, Kevin Levin has put this sentence from the W&L statement, in boldface, on  his updates: The officers ... did not record names or ages of any of the individuals. Apparently, he thinks it's important in undermining the SCV account or something. In one way, it isn't significant. It doesn't in any way deny the actions of the university.  On the other hand, it does show sloppy security procedures -- and, more significantly, accountability issues -- in the university's security and policing methods.

I notice Andy didn't mention that. Neither did Levin. In fact, as far as I know, I'm the only one to mention it thus far.

5 comments :

  1. It's damage control at is finest !
    "Ignore that man behind the curtain"
    Yeeeeesh !

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  2. When one considers the Scalawag phenomenon with Hall and Baker in mind, an irresistible and perfect symmetry becomes immediately manifest. Inasmuch as the phenomenon has its origins in profound self-loathing, it is not at all surprising to see both Hall and Baker in that camp. Lord knows if I were either Hall or Baker, I'd hate myself too. So again, from that perspective it all makes sense.

    Now then, very recently there was another very funny episode involving those two characters. Hall has a thread which discusses a billboard size portrait of that lunatic Sherman gazing over Atlanta, and Baker just thought it was "awesome". However, one commenter asked Hall if he thought an attending caption which read "I like niggers well enough as niggers" would give some zing to the portrait. Andy got all hysterical and has since removed the comment. I thought it was a fair question though.

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  3. The Yankee Webster's dictionary has some interesting words describing a liar. The pages of Webster contain too many descriptions of a liar to include all of them here, but fraud, cheat and con artist names a few.

    I saw all the above in action from Brooks Simpson at Gettysburg's July 2013 sesquicentennial event. Unfortunately he was one of the speakers under the tent on the first day of the event. I stayed just to see how far he would go with his Yankee lies.

    I saw fear, mixed with confused arrogance in Simpson's eyes and words as he spoke on a subject he is grossly unqualified to speak. I believe Simpson is afraid his past lies will expose him as a fraud. But that fear doesn't prevent him from telling more lies about southern heritage. The incident at Washington and Lee University is a good example.

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    Replies
    1. This is actually very interesting. I never thought Simpson was particularly bright, and I think his work is very vanilla. Whatever modest success he has experienced, I attributed to his formulaic style, which has mass appeal to a casual and highly commercialized audience. That he would be reduced to a bluffing, posturing shaman when confronted with a live and knowledgeable audience is almost predictable. I would have loved too see the buckets of sweat pour off of his shiny bald head.

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  4. Kenneth E. BohannonJuly 31, 2014 at 2:25 AM

    Question: Since President Kenneth P. Ruscio and the Board of Regents from Washington and Lee have shown that they can not govern the University impartially, when might we expect their resignations. And where is the partition to sign, demanding that they do so post-haste.

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