Althouse: "Chronicle Review Admits Bellesiles’s Story is False

July 20, 2010

"Chronicle Review Admits Bellesiles’s Story is False — Blames Student, not Bellesiles."

"Bellesiles is a demonstrated scholarly fraud, and doesn’t deserve the benefit of the doubt that many people are giving him. Once you’ve been busted for making stuff up, you need to be sure that what you publish is reasonably accurate. Bellesiles illustrates, once again, that he cares more about the narrative than about being sure his facts are correct, though I suppose that passing on other people’s fabrications is arguably a modest improvement over creating his own."

When do we believe the teacher who blames the student? Ask Elena Kagan.

23 comments:

Joe said...: Well YEAH...I'd blame the student too, if I were the House Organ of the Academic World.

What are they gonna blame the TEACHER?

Still it's sad or funny...so Bellesiles is soooo gullible that you can make up any cock-and-bull story and get out of your class responsibilities? No wonder this guy was fired as a bad scholar, he has very little skepticism…if it supports the Leftist Narrative, hey it must be true. Dood, when they come to you with a story like this, you might want some, I don’t know, evidence…the telegram from the Army….some piece of official correspondence. If I’d walked up to him and said, “My Grannie just died, that’s why I missed the mid-term.” You’re telling me he’d have believed it? Or if the hawt coed says, “I really, really think you are just a marvelous teacher and an inspiration to me, and ever so clever and handsome…” He believes her? WOW, just Wow.; 7/20/10, 10:42 AM
TMink said...: Shows a huge lack of critical thinking skills, eh?

But he has not risen because of his scholarship, but because of his orthodoxy. Only those of us our here in the country run a meritocracy. The ruling class elevates people based on the narrative and their orthodoxy. Just look at the Obama cabinet.

Trey wv=muladish, I bet it ain't pork; 7/20/10, 10:47 AM
The Drill SGT said...: This comment has been removed by the author.; 7/20/10, 10:49 AM
Hoosier Daddy said...: Wasn't this the same guy who wrote that book about gun ownership during the colonial period that was savaged for shoddy research and subsequently debunked?; 7/20/10, 10:49 AM
The Drill SGT said...: It might wash in some disciplines, but he's a (military) historian. The principal test of a historian's professional skill should be the ability to take a "war story" and research it to determine if it is historical fact or just some BS somebody made up to make themselves look good.

Whether or not the student or the author lied, Bellesiles is a bad historian; 7/20/10, 10:50 AM
Joe said...: Drill Sgt, your name betrays your neo-fascistic bias and latent racism...
Bellesiles is a man among men...a martyr and victim of hte American Gun Culture and Big Firearms.; 7/20/10, 10:52 AM
AllenS said...: Dear Mr. Bellesiles,

I'm sorry to have to tell you that I won't be handing in my homework assignment. The dog ate it.

Thankx,

AllenS; 7/20/10, 10:58 AM
Automatic_Wing said...: Call me cynical, but I think Bellisles made the whole thing up and the Chronicle just conducted a little sham investigation to whitewash the whole thing and save everyone some embarrassment.

I would love to chat with some of the other students in the class to see if someone matching Belleisle's description of "Ernesto" was actually there. I'm sure he would have been eary to remember, what with his penchant for shaving his head and wearing BDUs to class.; 7/20/10, 11:06 AM
KCFleming said...: In which The Chronicle does a hasty cleanup for the bullshit piece they printed.

Part of the Alinsky manual approach, smearing the military with false accusations, and blaming a nonexistent student for the whole thing.

It's collusion, I believe, until proven otherwise.
Release the documents.
Release the student name.

More Journolist tactics, seems to me. No benefit of the doubt anymore: guilty until proven innocent for these bastards.; 7/20/10, 11:22 AM
KCFleming said...: Just more Lefty Lies (And the Lying Liars Who Tell Them).; 7/20/10, 11:23 AM
Alan said...: "I'm sure he would have been eary to remember, what with his penchant for shaving his head and wearing BDUs to class."

Maybe at Central Connecticut State, but certainly not at all universities. Sometimes those guys are so numerous they don't stand out. I certainly wouldn't remember a particular shaved head in a BDU, since I had several in every class I took at Texas A&M. Of course, at A&M, this story would have been debunked before some nimrod professor would attempt to write an article about it.; 7/20/10, 11:29 AM
TWM said...: Lying liberal liars and they lies they tell.; 7/20/10, 11:30 AM
Big Mike said...: Am I the only person who gets an error message when he tries to follow the "Ask Elena Kagan" link?

It seems strange, but apparently the only liberal who ever told the truth was Saul Alinsky.; 7/20/10, 11:58 AM
Cedarford said...: Still smells to high heaven. Hope more legwork happens because this serial fabulist, Bellesiles, has his "honest, this one is accurate!" "Comeback" book ready to be published shortly.

1. Did Chronicle verify this machismo immigrant from Latin culture who was purportedly going around with shaved head and BDUs ACTUALLY write a sympathetic essay about cross-dressing butch women in the Civil War and extend that to homosexual advocacy in today's military. Of course, stranger things have happened, but a macho hispanic in BDUs advocating that is like a Mormon student advocating the military permit booze on ships and soldiers given amphetamines before expected combat.

2. The 20-year lifer Marine TA. Call him "Gunny".
a. "Gunny" never experienced and worked with any macho hispanic immigrants that would guide his experience and note a gay-and-cross dressing fan admitting so in public is rather remarkable?
b. "Gunny" never smelled anything amiss with a "new enlistee" magically up to SP4 and in combat in a few months?
c. "Gunny" in 20 years never knew anything about medivac procedures and didn't think anything of a kid with life-threatening head wounds being left in a combat zone for weeks to die of his injuries??
d. Who is Gunny? Is he REALLY a 20-year Marine, as Bellesiles claims?

3. You, Bellesiles, have a major pre-existing stigma as a liar. Yet you publish in the academic house organ under the name of being a serious employee hired by a state university.
You never check and verify a rather dubious student story before trying to make it an official narrative of "war's impact" on students???????? This is regarded as 1st class academic sloppiness, even in journalism - when someone "hears" somthing from a single source and then casts it as factual without any correboration.

4. The Chronicle does seem to be whitewashing Bellesiles - "Oh, he was just duped with "Gunny" by a student's fib.

5. Did Chronicle of CSCU attempt to interview other students about details of "Ernesto" - the acting out, shaved head and BDU stuff?? True, or not??; 7/20/10, 12:18 PM
Sofa King said...: The real question is did Bellesiles order the code red?; 7/20/10, 12:53 PM
Mitch H. said...: I don't think it's quite right to characterize successful academics as orthodox per se. Maybe "provocative orthodoxy", or "demonstrative pseudo-heterodoxy"? The point is to be *different* enough to stand out from the crowd of PhD candidates and post-docs, while reassuring enough to not actually threaten the core values of the gate-keepers. This is, of course, a moving target, because the core values of the gatekeepers are not necessarily in perfect alignment with each other, and the need to stand out from the crowd means that you have to trim as close to the political wind as you can without luffing. However, I suspect that the target moves more slowly with each new iteration of the process, as the core values of the gatekeepers come into closer and closer approximation of unity.; 7/20/10, 1:49 PM
Jason said...: The real question is did Bellesiles order the code red?

YOU'RE GOD-DAMNED RIGHT HE DID!!!!1!!!1!!!!11!!!!!!!; 7/20/10, 3:18 PM
Anonymous said...: Assuming the Chronicle wasn't lying its ass off when it said it contacted the student, this really was a case either of Bellesiles believing a student's lies (or, less likely but possible, a student deliberately choosing to take the blame for a lie by Bellesiles).

No credit to Bellesiles, but he was probably just being stupid, not being a liar.; 7/20/10, 4:20 PM
jr565 said...: Jason wrote:
The real question is did Bellesiles order the code red?

YOU'RE GOD-DAMNED RIGHT HE DID!!!!1!!!1!!!!11!!!!!!!

YOU CAN'T HANDLE THE TRUTH!!!!!; 7/20/10, 6:32 PM
Milwaukee said...: As a high school teacher I observed students copying others papers and I investigated. If the homework was to go through a text book and copy definitions, or parts of sentences, what was the difference between copying definitions off of another paper or out of a book? I had one student tell me he learned more by looking at another student's paper than out of the book. I posed this question to a committee of teachers, and one future administrator said the student should consider the ethical implications of what they were doing. My response was that if they didn't, we should. Why are teachers asking questions which are easily answered by plagiarizing?

Academia has become rife with plagiarism. But then, when professors use texts that are 25 or 30 years old, and lectures are them writing their notes on the chalkboard for graduate students to dutifully copy, and homework questions asked are ones asked many times before, why are we surprised by students copying answers? (Why not just scan the notes, and email them to us, and save everybody the trouble of going through the exercise?)

Graduate degrees have become a tree-house where those in can exclude those without. Favored subjects are allowed in. Is any real learning, teaching or research going on? Perhaps, but peer reviewing can be manipulated. Meanwhile, our K-12 schools are little better than the ones than prompted "A Nation At Risk", and unlikely to get any better.

As for Kagan and other leftist: Liars lie. The West Point Honor Code is "I will not lie, cheat or steal, nor tolerate those who do." That won't fly in the Ivy League. Conservatives hold themselves, and their colleagues, to a higher standard. Not always met, but strived for.; 7/20/10, 6:51 PM
JAL said...: @ Cdr4rd

a kid with life-threatening head wounds being left in a combat zone for weeks to die of his injuries??

Iraq, 2009 - WHAT "combat zone?"

@ stevenehrbar

No credit to Bellesiles, but he was probably just being stupid, not being a liar.

You might review Bellesiles history (cough).

You might think about the fact that he represents himself as a *military* historian.

You might want to acquaint yourself (not through Bellesiles and his ilk) with some of the 21st century American military practices and culture of this time. They are not represented in Bellesiles' piece of fiction.

Just some suggestions.

And boy is it going to be fun to "deconstruct" his new and thrilling 1877!; 7/20/10, 7:34 PM
JAL said...: One of my kids went to Davidson. Not only is there an honor code which is ENFORCED. You are duty bound to report yourself if you violate it.

A classmate of hers had to leave school and come back another year because he violated the honor code (and I believe was reported by a friend).

Thankfully Davidson was concentrating on character as well as academics.; 7/20/10, 7:37 PM
The Scythian said...: Sofa King wrote:

"The real question is did Bellesiles order the code red?"

Son, we live in a world that has students, and those students have to be indoctrinated by academics with degrees. Who's going to do it? You? You, Sofa King?

I have a greater responsibility than you could possibly fathom. You weep for the truth and you curse academia. You have that luxury. You have the luxury of not knowing what I know -- that the suppression of the truth, while tragic, probably generated support for progressive reform.

And my existence, while grotesque and incomprehensible to you, generates support for progressive reform.

You don't want the truth because deep down in places you don't talk about at parties, you want me indoctrinating those students... You /need/ me indoctrinating those students!

We use words like progressive, pacifist, radical... We use these words as the backbone of a life spent indoctrinating people.

You use them as a punchline.

I have neither the time nor inclination to explain myself to a man who rises and sleeps under the blanket of the very liberal votes that I provide, and then questions the manner in which I provide them! I would rather you just said thank you and went on your way.

Otherwise, I suggest that you pick up a book and teach a course.

Either way, I don't give a damn what you think you're entitled to.; 7/20/10, 10:08 PM