No Sherlock Holmes

In his regular Friday Rocky column, KOA krapulator Mike Rosen pulls off a classic triple-duh in the obviousness competition in speculating on who leaked the CU Privilege and Tenure Committee's recommendation to suspend rather than fire Ward Churchill:

You needn't be Sherlock Holmes to deduce that the leaker was likely a faculty member sympathetic to Churchill, or his attorney, David Lane. Since the Post has, itself, been sympathetic to Churchill while the Rocky Mountain News has been far more critical, it's not surprising the Post was awarded the local scoop.

Rosen uses this peg to hang a remarkably threadbare column. Why do "self-serving" faculty support Churchill?

1. The firing of a tenured professor sets an inconvenient precedent for them, threatening their inviolable job security and insulation from the consequences of unconscionable behavior.

2. Although Churchill is being disciplined for plagiarism, willful misrepresentation of facts and conduct that "falls below minimum standards of integrity," his defenders have framed this as a free-speech issue, which they believe to be an absolute protection.

3. Churchill's tasteless, hateful, bitter and cockeyed views are shared by many of his left-wing, blame-America-first colleagues in academia, including some at CU.

To all of which one can only say: what?! (Or maybe, as an anonymous commenter on the piece put it: "Iiiii-Bbbbb-Ttttt-Zzzzz!!!!!")

Rosen is actually the best of a bad lot of local radio guys, a lot that includes "Gunny" Bob "Call Me Kooky" Newman and Peter "Kill All The Immigrants!" Boyles [libel alert: Boyles has (probably) never said "kill all the immigrants!"].

Colorado Media Matters gets a lot of material from those three.

(via the unredeemably evil PB)