Redstate

By trevino Posted in Miscellanea — Comments (3) / Email this page » / Leave a comment »

Dan Froomkin, the most dishonest journalist at the Washington Post, is at it again. This time, he's happily noting that the President, in delivering the commencement address at Calvin College, is about to walk into a buzzsaw.

I'm betting that most of you readers out there, like me, suspected that Calvin was picked at least in part to assure Bush a supportive audience.....

On closer inspection, it turns out that Calvin College is not the bastion of the Christian Right it appeared to be. In fact, judging from my e-mail, it's a veritable hotbed of those other Christian values -- the ones that oppose war, work for social justice, and don't think much of the president at all.

And just what does the hack have in his e-mail? Oh, do read on.

He has: an e-mail from Kenneth Pomykala, chairman of the Religion department; an e-mail from student activities coordinator Kate Bowman ("[I]t’s difficult for me to find much that is excellent or praiseworthy in modern American evangelicalism"); and an e-mail from graduating senior Raleigh Chadderdon. This doughty band of, well, three e-mailers, has put up a Google group opposing the President's address. Froomkin links to it as evidence that the college -- that "veritable hotbed of other Christian values" -- is standing firm against the President's presence.

Problem is, a visit to the Google group in question reveals a somewhat pathetic spectacle. At the time of this writing, there are a whole five front-page posts. Only three of them are by imminent graduates of Calvin College. The group's membership? Nine -- out of a student enrollment of 4,300. I leave it to the reader to discern whether this paltry sum, plus a religion professor, plus a student activities coordinator, is a representative sample of Calvin College and its zeitgeist.

Now, let's make two things clear: First, I have no firsthand knowledge of Calvin College. Second, neither does Dan Froomkin. So why would a self-described "journalist" -- remember, he doesn't do opinion in his columns! -- arrive at the conclusion that Calvin College is anything but a conservative institution? Indeed, what does research on the school outside of Froomkin's e-mail inbox tell us?

Well. We find Christianity Today describing Calvin as a "conservative Christian college." We find Calvin faculty hailing the ascension of Benedict XVI. We find that the Princeton Review notes, "Historically, Calvin has been....conservative, Christian," and that "Students Pray on a Regular Basis." We find that Calvin College spawns members of the Vast Right-Wing Conspiracy. We find students complaining that if you're not Republican at Calvin, you'll have some difficulties. We find that Calvin has "the approval of such arbiters of conservative taste as The National Review." We find the leftist Americans United for Separation of Church and State describing Calvin as "a conservative Christian school in Michigan." We find conservative thinker Thomas Sowell praising Calvin as a "conservative institution." We find Calvin students interning at the Heritage Foundation. We find Calvin College lauded on Free Republic. We find mention of "the mostly white, conservative students at Calvin." We find Calvin College cited as a place where one may readily find "vocal opponents of abortion." We find Calvin itself touting its good press in National Review. We find the right-wing Insight Magazine having chosen Calvin as one of its top fifteen colleges. We find an appalled left-wing Calvin student reporting happy excitement in the hallways at the President's impending visit.

Oh, and we find that the President has been to Calvin College before -- and had a good time.

In short, we find that the preponderance of information available on the school suggests that it's exactly the sort of place where the President might want to speak. Precious little suggests that it's a "hotbed" of left-wing Christians who "oppose war, work for social justice, and don't think much of the president at all." Now, the point here is not to argue over Calvin's true ideological nature: rather, the point is that once again we see Dan Froomkin twisting things to suit his own partisan ends -- in this case, by waxing at length on the rejection of the President by a sizeable left-wing Christian collegiate milieu that apparently does not exist.

Actually, that's unfair of me. He may not be engaging in dishonest portrayal at all -- he may simply be, here, an immensely sloppy and amateurish journalist. Hopefully, the self-proclaimed devotee of truth and skepticism will see fit to tell his public which scenario is correct.