The Leadership Institute recently named me director of its Campus Leadership Program. I have worked as LI's director of schools for the last six months, but I've had a much longer association with CLP. Beginning in the late '90s, CLP sent me on speaking tours of various campuses. The infamous Berkeley book burning, for instance, occurred in protest of a CLP organized event. Other CLP organized lectures were almost as exciting. Administrators banned me from speaking at one school, while one of the directors of a building complex threatened me with arrest if I took the podium at another. For more than a decade, I've been working to bring balance to the campuses. I started with my efforts on a student newspaper at UMass-Amherst, went on to work for Young America's Foundation in the mid-1990s, then served as the executive director of Accuracy in Academia from 1997 to 2002, took a year off to speak on fifty or so campuses, and finally joined LI in February of this year. With the book set for release on September 21 and students returning to campus within the coming days, it should be a busy fall for me.

Free Morton C. Blackwell!!!

Dan,

You must be mistaken. Isn't it only the Right Wing whackos that censor free speech and ban (burn) books?

You must have these liberal groups confused with those jack booted, brown shirted Right Wing thugs.

We all know that the Left are kinder, gentler high minded visionaries who just have a live and let live attitude.

I guess that's why á lot of them have called for 'Únfit for Command' to be banned.

Bunch of hypocritical a$$holes.

I never called for that book to be banned. No one did. republicans started that rumor to make it look like Kerry had something to hide. Nice try though jackenape. You know you really are a paranoid wacko. Why don't you got back to your RV and keep an eye on Roswell for me buddy, ok.

You rent RV's don't you? Take one fthe lot and go take a vacation. If you think the Liberals are more hipocrtical than Conservatives (Gingrich and his anti-cheating stance), then you've been sucking too many of those fumes my friend. Go take the fam someplace as gentle and conservative as you are. Like Alabama circa 1859.

James Carville called for the book to be banned last week jacka$$. So have some of the liberal talk show hosts here in Boston.

Point is, the lefties cry foul when the facts point to their own inadequacies and will try to kill free speech as quick as they can.

The same 'rights' that they conveniently accuse the Bush crowd of trying to squelch, they want to throw out the window when convenient to their own ends.

When Dean was running (before we all discovered he was a liberal nut job), he tried to tag Bush as a book burner.

Look who the book burners are now.

James Carville is James Carville. He's entitled to his own opnion. Just because CNN decides to have him speak for the left on a daily TV debate show doesn't mean he actually speaks for everyone on the left. The charecterisics that you ascribe to "liberals" are meerly the charecterisics of a bad person. I find it hard to believe the world is as you say it is. Liberals are universally bad, inhuman creatures. And Conservatives are universally good, godlike human beings. That level of thinking is simplisitc, and seriously dangerous to our democracy.

I see. So, when there is proof of a point and names are named, it's just 'boys being boys'.

Another rationalizing, self-serving liberal wussie.

You're going down in November.

One more thing: I don't believe all liberals a bad. The ones that I may be able to relate to (like Joe Lieberman) have to be more moderate liberals that truly have a social conscience and aren't in it just to powerful elitists. These are not the ones who want to randomly select when rights apply, not the ones who want to keep fishing around in my pockets for more change to support their lost social causes, and not the ones who think that America is always wrong while the rest of the World is right.

The extreme ones (like Kerry, Dukakis, Kennedy) scare me and I can't even image them in positions of real power.

DB, you're a lively, sometimes interesting, and necessary commentator in this comment threads, but once again your posts here in this stream are wholly inappropriate. Did you look at the author's post and what the subject matter of it was? The author was speaking to somehting of a professional achivement that is accessible to anyone in his or her own personal life --whether you're left or right... You did however descend into picking up a fight for the sake of doing it. So, while you took pains to point out to us that James Carville is James Carville and doesn't speak for the left, called a fellow site visitor a jacknape and a paranoid wacko, you thrust yourself into a debate with someone on a comment stream on the author's post that had nothing to do with politics. Maybe you presume yourself to speak for the left? Perhaps you could. But be more considerate of the people who comment and visit this site, and of the author who keeps this site going. Bloggers open themselves up to the internet, expose their ideas and sometimes themselves to an eager universe of hyper-opinionated, political animals and media junkies looking for something interesting on the web that deviates form the norm. We've found it here, and you have to. But in your endeavor to zing someone with a good comeback, keep in mind your role because after all, you've provided an unusually high volume of comments in recent weeks. You've raised some valid points, but lately, more ofte than not, you've inserted the invective into the conversation where you are 1.) cast disproportionately into minority, and 2.) perhaps the butt of a joke here and there from a few of the regulars trading inside jokes. Just get used to it. Your comments are lively sometimes interesting, necessary, and welcome, but not when you're rude.

In this instance, the author posted something to his readers about a matter that is something to be quite personally proud of and he speaks about occasion in his professional life in the form of a recent appointment that perhaps we can all find accessible. Why make it into a diatribe for yourself? Not everyone here shares the ideology that the personal is political. Just be more considerate. A simple congratulations to the author might do.

Hold it finbar: I've just read the first few sentences of your post and I already must respond....look at the posts...I didn't start anything....I made the comment "Free Morton C. Blackwell" because it DIRECTLY RELATED to what was being posted by Mr. Flynn. He got a new job, working FOR MORTON C. BLACKWELL. It was joke. Then Mike Boyle starts up on his SWVT are being censored bit, and I had to step in. My post RELATED to Mr. Flynn's.

My god man your whole post is about this! read the posts! I had made a half joke congradulating him on his new job, and then Mike Boyle started that whole new line of thinking. Please man. If your gonna write 500 words make sure you got your bases covered. For your sake.

Yea, and Mike Boyle was talking about the author's new gig and made joke about the Swift boat dudes, not about you. I guess you have to leave no joke or comment left unanswered. But, that's my point. Also, you felt the need to call him a "jacknape" and a "paranoid wacko." That's unfortunate, and that's what I'm talking about with the insults, swearing, etc. So, before I start running the risk of sounding like I have to stick up for and point out every infraction on civility, and become guilty of what I am accusing you of, let me just say that in other comment threads over the weekend, you did drop all sorts of insults and swears were flying all over the place. Not trying to be harsh or pick on you, I just would love to see less personal invective from-you towards other regulars. I have my bases covered on this one, sorry it took a few hundred words or characters to cover them.

Sorry. I didn't get the impression that Mike's comments were congraulatory. They seemed to be an open invite for debate to me.