Bill Moyers responds to criticism stemming from LBJ era activity

The editors of The Chronicle of Higher Education received a letter from Bill Moyers in response to my blog post from last week. (See here for the post and comments.) Here is the text in full, and my answer follows.

To the Editors of the Chronicle of Higher Education, The Chronicle Review and The Brainstorm:

In his vituperative attack on me (“The Moyers Controversy,” February 25), Brainstorm Blogger Mark Bauerlein irresponsibly and egregiously misrepresented my journalism, relied on second hand and groundless sources to support his venom, and distorted the record beyond recognition – all the while failing to ask for my comment on his charges and ignoring what I have in fact published about them.

Bauerlein is not telling the truth when he says that my broadcast on shock jocks in the media “asserts” that “the vitriol spilling from conservative books and talk radio spurred him on,” referring to the shooter in the Knoxville church massacre. The report was far more nuanced and careful than Bauerlein’s account of it, and I concluded it with these words: “We may never know what finally triggered the killer’s rage, unless he chooses at his trial or later to tell us. But not for a moment do I think any of the talk show hosts mentioned by the police would have wished it to happen.”

He then cites a recent Washington Post piece reporting FBI documents relating to the investigation 45 years ago of a White House aide’s sexual preference, claiming that the newspaper “calls into question whether Bill Moyers has any standing at all to raise the tolerance issue.” That is not what the Washington Post claimed. Other outlets, including the Associated Press and USA Today, didn’t even mention me in their reporting on the newly released FBI materials. Then Bauerlein buttresses his assault by quoting from other vitriolic and bizarre attacks on me from Slate’s Jack Shafer, whose own former colleague, Miami Herald’s Glenn Garvin, has admitted that “Shafer has totally declared war on Moyers.” Finally, Bauerlein invokes another attack on me from The Weekly Standard, the neo-conservative bible whose editors have long engaged in partisan, personal, and distorted attacks on me.

Those I understand, coming as they do from the right-wing noise machine. But as a long-time reader and admirer of The Chronicle of Higher Education and The Review, I am saddened by your irresponsibility in lending your reputation and site to Bauerlein’s shameful performance. Are bloggers on your site relieved of the burden of fact-checking? I would hope that at the least you would look at the response I made to the Shafer polemic and ask Bauerlein why he ignored it.

Sincerely,

Bill Moyers

[HNN: Bauerlein provides a response to Moyers's statement at his blog. Click on the SOURCE link above.]