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Student's tall tale revealed. Confesses fabricating US surveillance story [Mao's "Little Red Book"]
Boston Globe ^ | December 24, 2005

Posted on 12/24/2005 10:13:27 AM PST by John Jorsett

It rocketed across the Internet a week ago, a startling newspaper report that agents from the US Department of Homeland Security had visited a student at the University of Massachusetts at Dartmouth at his New Bedford home simply because he had tried to borrow Mao Tse-Tung's ''Little Red Book" for a history seminar on totalitarian goverments.

The story, first reported in last Saturday's New Bedford Standard-Times, was picked up by other news organizations, prompted diatribes on left-wing and right-wing blogs, and even turned up in an op-ed piece written by Senator Edward M. Kennedy in the Globe.

But yesterday, the student confessed that he had made it up after being confronted by the professor who had repeated the story to a Standard-Times reporter.

The professor, Brian Glyn Williams, said he went to his former student's house and asked about inconsistencies in his story. The 22-year-old student admitted it was a hoax, Williams said.

''I made it up," the professor recalled him saying. ''I'm sorry. . . . I'm so relieved that it's over."

The student was not identified in any reports. The Globe interviewed him Thursday but decided not to write a story about his assertion, because of doubts about its veracity. The student could not be reached yesterday.

(Excerpt) Read more at boston.com ...


TOPICS: News/Current Events; US: Massachusetts
KEYWORDS: americahaters; bushhaters; campuscommies; campusradicals; dhs; fabrication; fakebutaccurate; hoax; littleredbook; lyingliars; patriotleak; radicalleftists; spying; umass
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To: SamAdams76
Kennedy being a child molester and a heroin addict.

Oh that Kennedy?!

Merry Christ's Night

21 posted on 12/24/2005 10:34:05 AM PST by bray (Merry Christmas Iraq)
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To: John Jorsett

He was just being a good little Marxist-Leninist.
Lying is one of the mildest of sins advocated in the unholy cause of advancing communism.

We have an entire MSM built on this premise.
His real "sin" was not doing a better job of lying, and then admitting his lie.

Even Dan Rather would not commit that "sin."


22 posted on 12/24/2005 10:36:03 AM PST by Travis McGee (--- www.EnemiesForeignAndDomestic.com ---)
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To: John Jorsett

He may be a liar, but the professors and the media were willing dupes..and just in time to affect the Patriot Act renewal..Isn't that a coincidence?


23 posted on 12/24/2005 10:39:06 AM PST by the Real fifi
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To: John Jorsett

Wonder how much he got paid for his lie so that Teddy could get published under any-including false-pretenses.


24 posted on 12/24/2005 10:39:44 AM PST by LurkedLongEnough
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To: John Jorsett

If Teddy Kennedy got suckered and punked on this one, well, it's all good.

Doing this to fat old drunken stupid Ted is rather like poking sticks at a toothless old lion. Fun to watch and not much danger involved.


25 posted on 12/24/2005 10:44:11 AM PST by alloysteel
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To: mware
Fake but accurate. Again
American Thinker ^ | 12-24-05 | Thomas Lifson

Posted on 12/24/2005 11:50:46 AM CST by smoothsailing

If Kennedy were a man, he would publicly apologize to President Bush for repeating a vicious lie about him and giving it credence. But of course, if Kennedy were a man, Mary Joe Kopechne would be alive.

26 posted on 12/24/2005 10:59:29 AM PST by Stultis (I don't worry about the war turning into "Vietnam" in Iraq; I worry about it doing so in Congress.)
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To: John Jorsett

Delusional persecuted liberal syndrome strikes again!


27 posted on 12/24/2005 11:00:25 AM PST by VOA
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To: Stultis

This is nothing more than S.O.P. for the dims.
Don't they know that the majority of Americans no longer take them seriously?
Lie; get caught at it; "could happen" when the lie is unearthed; just doesn't sell any more.
Merry Christmas and happy whatever holiday you celebrate.


28 posted on 12/24/2005 11:18:30 AM PST by Straight8
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To: John Jorsett

Obviously Carl Rove got to him. Was he water boarded? Forced to wear women's underway on his head? Inquiring minds want to know.


29 posted on 12/24/2005 11:20:21 AM PST by stop_fascism
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To: John Jorsett
It rocketed across the Internet a week ago...

LOL -yup, the moonbat telegraph system consisting of moonbat websites and MSM hubs... Otherwise known as WMN, the Whining Moonbat Network

30 posted on 12/24/2005 11:25:40 AM PST by DBeers (†)
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To: the Real fifi; All

Here are the pertinent points IMO

The professor, Brian Glyn Williams

praised the student as hard-working and likeable, said he was shaken by the deception.

''I feel as if I was lied to, and I have no idea why," said Williams, an associate ("professor of Islamic history"). He said the possibility the government was scrutinizing books borrowed by his students ''disturbed me tremendously." ....Shocked I tell you, shocked!.... ;)

a history seminar on totalitarianism and fascism taught by a colleague of Williams, Robert Pontbriand. .... Sounds French.....

a Standard-Times reporter called Williams, who has traveled to Afghanistan for research....yeah, just "research"... uhuh

UMass-Dartmouth, said the university did not expect to take any action against the student. ''This was a conversation that took place between a student and his faculty members," .... Never mind that the proffessor went to the Standard News.....

After that story, a Standard-Times reporter called Williams, who has traveled to Afghanistan for research, to ask whether he was concerned about government surveillance, Williams said. .... my, my...out of the blue after the NYT story on NSA, this reporter just happens to phone "The Proffesor, William" ..... wink wink ;)

As an afterthought, (But just as an "afterthought"...but of course!) Williams said, he told the reporter about the alleged visit by the Homeland Security agents, and that became the lead of the Dec. 17 Standard-Times story.

Pontbriand was appalled. ''A university is a place for the open inquiry for the truth," he said. ..... Don't you mean for knowledge Ponti baby? This guy wouldn't know truth if it hit him upside the head!

This story is all about the enemy within. And it would behoove our intellegence to look in to those little trips to Afghanistan and both these proffessors.

Sorry if this was hard to read in the beggining, I could have done better if I knew how to bold and use italics in this type of forum, but hopefully you understood where my own remarks were. :(




31 posted on 12/24/2005 11:27:59 AM PST by Sweetjustusnow (Oust the IslamoCommies here and abroad.)
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To: eyespysomething

How much would I bet that this student was merely spewing back to his professor of "Islamic studies" exactly what he thought his prof would love to hear???? I would bet major $$$ that this prof spewed hate-America bile for a whole semester, and the student thought it would be a nice way to suck up to such an America-basher by retailing this preposterous story. The professor's extreme bias can easily be seen in the fact that the idiot relayed the tall tale to the media without first being sufficiently skeptical about such a ludicrous tale. The media bias can be seen in the fact that such tripe made it quickly into the mediastream without any adequate investigation.


32 posted on 12/24/2005 11:32:57 AM PST by Enchante (Democrats: "We are ALL broken and worn out, our party & ideas, what else is new?")
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To: eyespysomething

I'm waiting for a Liberal commentator to say something like: 'If someone was sufficiently concerned about anti-terrorism laws that they IMAGINED this happening, then it might as well have REALLY happened.' To them, laws that have a "chilling effect" is sufficient to claim that they are being oppressed. Same thing as the Patriot Act, where people feel that their civil liberties are being violated, but no one can provide anything other than hypothetical cases to show that their civil liberties really were violated. To the Left, it's all about what they feel should be--reality makes no difference.


33 posted on 12/24/2005 11:43:26 AM PST by rbg81
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To: John Jorsett

Interesting that the professor taught Islamic history. Wonder if the student was a Muslim trying to discredit our government.


34 posted on 12/24/2005 11:53:58 AM PST by tinamina
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To: Sweetjustusnow

The whole thing doesn't pass the laugh test, does it?


35 posted on 12/24/2005 12:01:53 PM PST by the Real fifi
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To: eyespysomething
Even if the assertion was a hoax, she said, it did not detract from Kennedy's broader point that the Bush administration has gone too far in engaging in surveillance.

Fake, but accurate.

36 posted on 12/24/2005 12:05:47 PM PST by PMCarey
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To: Stultis
To paraphrase Rush: Don't bother holding your breath waiting for Teddy to do right. It didn't work for Mary Jo Kopechne and it won't work for you.
37 posted on 12/24/2005 12:10:29 PM PST by boojumsnark (Time flies like an arrow; fruit flies like a banana.)
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To: John Jorsett

This law is so good it makes its victims deny their rights have been violated.


38 posted on 12/24/2005 12:11:48 PM PST by Raycpa
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To: saquin
Fake but accurate?

LOL

Rush Limbaugh's quotation of another idiot member of Congress: "Admiral Boorda..." comes to mind.

39 posted on 12/24/2005 12:23:10 PM PST by Calvin Locke
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To: Sweetjustusnow
< i>in front of what you want to italicize, then close it with < /i> (without the spaces in the brackets). Same thing for bold < B> text < /B>

See HTML Sandbox.

40 posted on 12/24/2005 1:06:55 PM PST by WVNan
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