Political Correctness

In that strange land known as Political Correctness, events are moving toward a useful showdown. By the end of January -- by next spring at the latest -- we should get some idea of the limits of the new racism within the federal government. I say, high time.2 James J. Kilpatrick is a syndicated columnist.

It is always tempting to ignore the bluster and bombast emanating from the vicinity of Patrick L. McDonough, the Baltimore County delegate and radio talk show host who considers himself a man of the people but mostly is a self-promoting bomb-thrower. His is a career built on angry sound bites and finger-pointing, particularly at minority groups, while his actual legislative accomplishments in Annapolis can be contained in a thimble - with room to spare. But his latest bloviation demands attention - if only because ignoring it might suggest it was excusable (which it was not)

A . M. Chaplin's cover story on political correctness is the result of one of those rare cases of editor and writer coming up with the same story idea at the same staff meeting. Both of us had gotten interested in the fact that the perception of political correctness -- the current campus orthodoxy on matters of race, gender and class -- had undergone some kind of significant change.The popularity of the somewhat affectionate but mostly contemptuous abbreviation "P.C." suggests that awareness of the phenomenon has become widespread -- and that it's now open to criticism from quarters where it had once been sacrosanct.

The writer who wishes to smear another writer and proponent of the Tubman statue with the noxious taint of "political correctness" couldn't be more wrong ("Tubman statue: political correctness run amok," March 15). He believes John Hanson will be unfairly relegated because he was a white male and Tubman unreasonably elevated because she was not. My academic experience, albeit a long time ago, was decidedly to the contrary. Although I excelled in history and got a academic prize for it along with a degree cum laude from Western Maryland College, I was somehow unaware of who Harriet Tubman was. The full importance of her accomplishments was not brought home to me until I read a chapter of "Black Profiles In Courage" by Kareem Abdul-Jabbar in a Cumberland bookstore in the 1990s.

President Bush went to a college campus in Michigan last Saturday to launch a crusade that can only be called intellectual Willie Hortonism -- the use of contrived symbols to scare the wits out of people. As a blatant attempt to make political hay out of the phenomenon called PC ("political correctness"), Bush's speech is better characterized as PS (political shamefulness)."Political correctness" is the term used by the right wing to mean the forcible suppression of ideas deemed offensive by minorities and women on college campuses.

The writer who wishes to smear another writer and proponent of the Tubman statue with the noxious taint of "political correctness" couldn't be more wrong ("Tubman statue: political correctness run amok," March 15). He believes John Hanson will be unfairly relegated because he was a white male and Tubman unreasonably elevated because she was not. My academic experience, albeit a long time ago, was decidedly to the contrary. Although I excelled in history and got a academic prize for it along with a degree cum laude from Western Maryland College, I was somehow unaware of who Harriet Tubman was. The full importance of her accomplishments was not brought home to me until I read a chapter of "Black Profiles In Courage" by Kareem Abdul-Jabbar in a Cumberland bookstore in the 1990s.

Political Correctness is Disabling SocietyI am writing in response to the April 6 column in The Evening Sun, "It's handicapped, despite the PC police." I agree totally with Leslie Miller about political correctness. Political correctness in my opinion the most overdone issue of our era. Everything must be politically correct, one must be careful not to offend someone. We must stop being so picky at these little terms and start worrying about more important issues.Until the world grows up and realizes PC is not helping anymore, we will all have to put up with it. But when that day arrives, I'll be at the front of the anti-PC people.

"Neither individuals nor societies flourish when truth becomes the servant of politics."Thus writeth Lynne V. Cheney, chairman of the National Endowment for the Humanities, in a document released yesterday that purports to describe "the state of the humanities in higher education."It does little of the sort.Rather, Ms. Cheney's "report" to Congress is a compilation of the charges leveled recently by conservatives at the nation's left-leaning professoriate, which we are to believe is hell-bent on imposing liberal "political correctness" on thousands of impressionable young adults.

LONDON -- Jane Brown, elementary school headmistress, ventured into the realm of American-style political correctness last week and you'd think she had brought in the bubonic plague.As headmistress of a school in an extremely deprived London neighborhood, Ms. Brown turned down cut-rate student tickets to Prokofiev's ballet "Romeo and Juliet" at the Royal Opera House.Ms. Brown reportedly thought Shakespeare's tragedy was too violent and "entirely about heterosexual love."Her fiat provoked even Prime Minister John Major to damn political correctness as exhibited by the instantly beleaguered Ms. Brown as "widely unpopular among parents."

Poor Ted Danson and Whoopi Goldberg. They're the P.C. Poster Children of the moment.Make that ANTI-P.C. poster kids. With their recent stunt at New York's Friar's Club -- with Ted in blackface telling bawdy, race-based jokes written by Whoopi -- this year's fun couple not only landed in the headlines, they've been the subject of much finger-pointing by those who would claim to be arbiters of all that is politically correct.How unchic. How un-Hollywood.How trendy.Because it's finally happening.

Keillor is correct about Christmas Thank you for the excellent article by Garrison Keillor, "Nonbelievers, please leave Christmas alone" (Dec. 16). Mr. Keillor is exactly right: "If you're not in the club, then buzz off." He should have added, "And don't post your petty, hate-filled comments against this article." There is nothing "bigoted" about his attitude. It is simply live-and-let-live. There is an astonishing wealth of traditions, art and music surrounding Christmas.

Concealed guns could save lives What a senseless, preventable and sad tragedy it is that a young, productive man was cut down by a thug on the day of his first child's birth ("Birth, death collide on Mother's Day," May 12). In Virginia, Carlos Santay might have had a chance to defend himself and to live a productive life with his young wife and child. In Virginia, honest citizens are allowed to conceal a firearm. Perhaps the thug who ruined so many lives on that fateful day might not have been so bold as to rob and kill Mr. Santay if he had thought he might be packing a weapon.

The Harford Community College Office of Advising, Career and Transfer Services, and Harford County Public Schools Office of Guidance and Counseling, will hold the ninth annual Career Information and Job Fair from 4:30 p.m. to 6:30 p.m. Tuesday in the HCC Student Center in Bel Air. The fair brings together students from middle, high and the post-secondary level to meet with Harford County business representatives. More than 50 businesses are expected to attend. Information: 410-836-4185.

It's beginning to sound a lot like gaffe season in American politics. That's the time when the candidates become so exhausted from endless campaigning that their brains lose contact with the words flowing out of their mouths. Did somebody say "Joe Biden"? The Delaware senator and Democratic presidential hopeful stumbled last week when he compared the performance of District of Columbia schools with Iowa's education successes. "There's less than 1 percent of the population of Iowa that is African-American," he said.

People who dread Christmas shopping and the hand-wringing over what present to buy for which person should consider giving books. No need to know what size to get, as with clothing, or what dietary restrictions the recipient might have, as with candy or fruitcake. One of the biggest advantages of books is that you can buy them online, without having to inspect the merchandise personally before buying, so you can avoid the mobs in the malls. Among the new books this year, Londonistan by Melanie Phillips is an eye-opening account of how the British have so succumbed to political correctness as regards their Muslim minority that even incitements to kill by Muslim extremists go unpunished.

The new TV ads for the cutting-edge reality comedy Borat focus on shots of packed opening-weekend audiences stunned into silence by some hugely offensive statements about women, Jews, gays or slavery, then breaking into convulsive laughter. On the phone from Los Angeles, producer Jay Roach said the filmmakers knew they would get this reaction: "We tested and tested it with audiences." The testing proved that most audiences would respond with exasperation at Borat's racism, homophobia, anti-Semitism and misogyny, while retaining their sympathy for the clueless Kazakh TV reporter making a documentary about America and becoming obsessed with Pamela Anderson along the way. Of course, the B'nai B'rith, the Russian government and other, less-vocal, groups have registered everything from sheer outrage to worry over whether some audiences will take Borat's antics straight.

CULTURE OF COMPLAINT: THE FRAYING OF AMERICA. Robert Hughes. Oxford University Press New York Public Library. 203 pages. $19.95. If you're in the mood for a flagellation of contemporary American culture -- and for a demonstration of its increasingly intertwined relationship with politics -- do I have a book for you. Robert Hughes, Time's art critic and author of numerous award-winning books of history and cultural criticism ("Barcelona," "The Fatal Shore"),...

P.C. alert.Fox's "Daddy Dearest" debuts tomorrow night at 9:30 on WBFF (Channel 45). And, if nothing else, it's going to send TV's political correctness thermometer straight into the red.The sitcom stars comedian Richard Lewis as a psychiatrist whose obnoxious father, a retired used-car salesman, comes to live with him. The father is played by Don Rickles, the king of insult humor.Lewis' character, Steven Mitchell, is already having a hard time as a recently divorced single parent trying to raise a 10-year-old son. Now, he's got the reincarnation of Archie Bunker living under his roof, too.Part of the humor comes from the obvious Archie and Meathead roles played by Rickles and Lewis.

BOSTON -- If I had my druthers, this election would have turned on the war in Iraq. I hoped that when the voters finally got it, "it" would have been the disaster that's turned this war zone into a recruiting ground for terrorists. Instead, we have the self-described party of family values caught enabling, or at least ignoring, a sick puppy of a congressman, Mark Foley, who was sex-talking electronically to teenage pages. Instead, we have House Speaker Dennis Hastert dismissing such an exchange as merely "over-friendly" and White House spokesman Tony Snow describing the messages as "naughty."

WASHINGTON - Is it possible that I'm beginning to feel sorry for Lawrence Summers? Do I need an intervention? No, it isn't his opponents who have dredged up my soupcon of sympathy for the president of Harvard University. It's his defenders. The Story That Will Not Die began when Mr. Summers offered his opinion on women and science. Deliberately provoking a conference audience, he suggested that part of the reason women hadn't achieved equality in academic science was "intrinsic aptitude."