CBS's Hartman Finds ANTI-WAR TEENAGE PROTESTERS are CLUELESS !

MRC ^ | Friday, March 14, 2003 12:35:47 | BrentBaker

[fight_truth_decay]

Clueless anti-war high school student protesters mocked by CBS News. Really. Wednesday's 60 Minutes II ended with a short piece by Steve Hartman, the guy who does the very Americana "Everybody Has a Story" vignettes, on how he suspects high schoolers are just using the protests to get out of class: "To me, giving up algebra for peace is a kind of like giving up brussel sprouts for Lent, just a little too convenient to be commendable."

Hartman showed how they really need "to pick up a newspaper."

Cut

MRC analyst Brian Boyd alerted me to the Hartman piece, which aired at the end of the March 12 60 Minutes II, and put together a transcript of it.

Sitting in a coffee shop, Hartman began: "Everyday I come to this coffee house in Los Angeles. It's across the street from a high school where twice now I've seen students walk out of class to protest war with Iraq. Now to me, giving up algebra for peace is a kind of like giving up brussel sprouts for Lent, just a little too convenient to be commendable. "And it's not just here, kids are walking out of high schools and junior high schools all over America. The object used to be to sit-in and take over the school, now kids just give up the ship, abandon class to stand on a street corner and bark. Never mind that at their age-"

High school girl protester, amongst maybe 20 or so along the side of a major street: "Make love, not war."

Hartman: "-they have no business making either. I just think if they're going to picket-"

Same teenage girl: "Peace not war."

Hartman: "-they ought to pick up a newspaper."

Same girl, holding a blue sign from "Not in Our Name" proclaiming: "No War on Iraq, No War on the World," .. "People who never did anything are just being bombed and suffering and becoming homeless. People-"

Hartman to her: "Where?"

Girl: "Everywhere. They, didn't they bomb Iraq?"

Hartman: "No, not yet."

Girl: "They bombed Afghanistan, right?"

Hartman: "Yeah, yeah."

Girl: "They did and yeah, people are dying and it's, it's not right."

Hartman: "They kind of got the gist."

Hartman to a teenage guy: "The leader of Iraq is?"

Hartman narration: "They're just missing a few details."

Guy: "Umm."

Hartman: "What comes to your head? Just right off the top of your head."

Guy: "Osama bin Laden."

Hartman: "Osama bin Laden?"

Hartman's piece then jumped from the street side to conservative actor/author Ben Stein's house.

Stein declared from his sofa: "I'm stunned when I meet them and how little they know."

Hartman: "Ben Stein is a lawyer, Star Search judge and fellow skeptic on this issue."

Stein: "Wow, we can miss class and have meaning in our lives and we're only 15 years old and don't know where Iraq is on the map. What a great deal."

Hartman, over video of Stein's backyard with smoke pouring out of a small device on the ground: "Ironically, even as he ranted about America's misguided youth, outside his own son was trying out the smoke bomb recipe he got from the Anarchist Cookbook. Really."

Stein talking out his back door to his teenage son: "Don't do that, Tommy. What if you set the tree on fire. Why don't you go into Beverly Hills and pick up some girls?"

Hartman: "At least he does know the leader of Iraq."

Back to the teens on the street, Hartman picked up where he left off, with a the dumbfounded guy: "Why does Osama bin Laden keep coming to my head?"

Girl protester: "What else do we feel strongly about?"

Hartman: "Finally, the most insightful comment of the day."

Teenage girl, the same one as earlier, reading from a flyer: "OK, 'healthcare not welfare.' I mean, 'healthcare not welfare,' yeah."

Hartman: "Actually it says, 'healthcare not warfare,' but I digress."

Hartman to the girl: "And you feel strongly about that?"

Girl: "No, but, I mean, like I do but I don't know enough about it."

Hartman then tried to suggest both sides are equally naive: "And that says it all. I see too many kids and way too many adults on both sides taking a firm stand without a leg to stand on. Apparently, it's better to pick a side than admit you watch way too much Jerry Springer. Which by the way, is a name I'm sure they do know."

Hartman to the clueless guy: "Saddam."

Guy: "Saddam Hussein?"

Hartman: "There you go."

And that was the end of Hartman's piece.

Of all the 60 Minutes II stories on Wednesday night, which included a Dan Rather report on how the Patriot II missiles supposedly don't work, this is the only one without an online mention or summary, at least as of Thursday night.

The 60 Minutes II page: http://www.cbsnews.com/sections/60II/main3475.shtml

[fight_truth_decay]

One has to laugh at this commentary ;but for the fact, we have the most expensive educational system ever created in the history of the world. Yet, it graduates scores of young people who cannot write a correct sentence, work a simple arithmetic problem, or read with understanding. They do not even know the alphabet well enough to work effectively as file clerks or make change at the checkout. The present American educational system has left a generation of young Americans largely ignorant of the moral, economic, political, and spiritual principles on which the greatness of our nation was founded.

[eyespysomething]

my hubby caught the end with the girl who didn't even know the sign she was carrying and was shocked at just how stupid these kids were (more so than he thought they were). I think it should be played next to all anti-war demo videos on the news!

[NEWwoman]

There you go....
Our tax dollars at work in the public schools.

[theDentist]

For the first time, I wish I'd turned the channel to 60 Minutes (2).

[Noumenon]

Well, we're obviously not spending enough money on our schools. /sarcasm

Last year, I resigned fromt he Kootenai County Central Republican Committee when the only thing on the educational agenda was discussion concerning how much they were going to spend on schools. I stood up and compared that discussion to a debate over how many new seats they planned to add to a porn theater. I told them that as long as the content of what was being taught and the methods used to teach that content were not subject to question, then they simply weren't serious about education - and that there was no way that I could continue to support them.

[lodwick]

Great post - thanks.

[fight_truth_decay]

National Center on Education and the Economy (NCEE), the center -- originally funded by the Carnegie Corporation of New York -- is run by Marc Tucker, good friend of Bill and Hillary Clinton. Tucker is the author of the infamous "Dear Hillary" letter in which he laid out the master plan for a "seamless web ... cradle to grave" for workforce training and retraining, changing the purpose of education from educating for intelligence to educating to produce a workforce. When governor of Arkansas, Bill Clinton had brought Tucker in to restructure education in that state. In 1990-91, as Bill Clinton was mounting his campaign to seek the Democrat nomination for the presidency, Tucker paid Hillary Clinton over $100,000 to promote "America's Choice: high skills or low wages!" -- an act that brought NCEE under the scrutiny of the New York Attorney General in 1996.

Lynn M. Stuter http://www.newswithviews.com

[RAT Patrol]

Funny and sad!!!

[observer5]

"To me, giving up algebra for peace is a kind of like giving up brussel sprouts for Lent, just a little too convenient to be commendable."

[timestax]

bump to the top

[PureSolace]

Ben Stein Bump

[SquirrelKing]

Great post. Forwarding along...

[cruiserman]

Which tells you school is worthless, since these kids will eventually figure things out once they're out of school.

[fight_truth_decay]

The United States Constitution: ... The powers not delegated to the United States by the Constitution, nor prohibited by it to the States, are reserved to the States respectively, or to the people. (Tenth Amendment) therefore, education is reserved to the States respectively, or to the people. Why do we have a cabinet level United States Department of Education (US DOE)? Does this not violate the U.S. Constitution? The US DOE was established under the Carter Administration as a political payoff to the teacher unions for their support of Jimmy Carter for president.

[rockrr]

Girl: "Make love not war".

Hartman: "OK".

Girl: "Huh?"

Hartman: "I Said OK".

Girl: "OK, what?"

Hartman: "OK, let's make love!"

Girl: "Ugh! You're like old, and stuff!"

Hartman: So what? You're like dumb, and stuff. But you offered, and I'm agreeing"

Girl: "EWWEEEEEEEEUUUU!"

Hartman: "That's what I was thinking".

[angcat]

I believe the school would have less to do with it because to me the parents would be the influence. It seems most of these little bastards must have American hating parents.

[IYAS9YAS]

Before we put the blame solely on public schools, we need to ask what the hell the parents of these uneducated, misinformed and ignorant kids have been doing for the last 16-18 years...I place blame on both.

It's only been 16 years since I graduated from public school and I had teachers who actually made you learn something and had control over the classroom. Parents cared when the teacher called or sent home a note and Johnny was reprimanded at home...what the hell has happened?

[wideawake]

Please tell us, O leftist genius, exactly when and where the last US bomb hit a target in downtown Baghdad?

I'd be interested to know.

[IYAS9YAS]

Well, Coeur d 'Alene has been getting more and more liberal as time goes by. The same thing is happening here in Canyon County. Then there's Adaho, much of what's wrong with Idaho is in Ada County.