Churchill takes the stand

Oh God, with an eagle feather on red fabric next to him. According to the Camera, he's spouting bullshit about--er, contextualizing--his "little Eichmanns" essay. You know the drill: "He said if you make it a 'practice of killing other peoples' babies for your own personal gain, that eventually, they are going to give you a taste of the same thing.'"

Churchill also denied plagiarizing Fay Cohen:

Churchill acknowledged that it appears Cohen was plagiarized in the essay, but he said he did not write the essay and was merely an editor of the piece.

"I was a copy editor, essentially," Churchill said.

"Did you tell that to the committee?" Lane asked

"I tried to," he said.

Earlier Tink Tinker and Chief Facilitator Russell Means emoted:

Means choked up on the witness stand and said "to take a small phrase and besmirch him and try to ruin his reputation among the people who know what he writes. It is a scholarly massacre — it's what I call it. It's not right and it's full of holes...they do not treat white professors at CU the same way."

Update: More from the Post on Churchill's testimony, this on the Mandan epidemic being "common knowledge":

"I've been hearing this all my life from traditional sources and mainstream sources. It's enshrined in songs and oral traditions specific to the Mandan," Churchill said.

Churchill said he's attended several speaking engagements since the misconduct allegations arose and people are stunned when he tells them that he is accused of making up facts about smallpox being introduced by the Army, something he considers common knowledge.

"Enshrined in songs and oral traditions specific to the Mandan." Just the other day, of course, investigative committee member Robert Clinton noted in his testimony (scroll to bottom) that the committee had

even contacted the Mandan tribe cultural resource officer to ask if she was aware of any oral traditions that would back up Churchill's account, Clinton testified.

She said no.

Update: Obvious question: Where exactly are these stories and songs? If Churchill could come up with any, he would, wouldn't he? Sing one for us, Ward. No, don't.

Update II: The Camera's John Aguilar finishes up the day. Read it yourself, but I liked this: "Ward Churchill, in often long-winded testimony that Lane tried to move along with prompts of "briefly" and 'in 25 words or less'. . ."

This is good, too:

Churchill explained to the jury another misconduct allegation against him -- that he had stated there was pretty good circumstantial evidence that Captain John Smith had deliberately infected the Wampanoags in Massachusetts with smallpox in the 1600s.

He said he wasn't implicating Smith personally but rather the subjugation effort he led in New England.

"Not that he personally did it, but that it would have been done on his instructions," Churchill said.

The fact that smallpox has a two-week incubation period and the disease didn't spread among the Wampanoags for two years after Smith's departure, Churchill said, can be explained by the fact that some of Smith's subordinates remained in the area.

"He's got men on the ground both of the years leading up to the epidemic," he testified.

Gee, where's the "formite" transmission gambit?