Free Republic

The career assassination of Cornel West: A messy intellectual divorce reveals layers of broken heart — and to what end? Independent of one’s stance on the rift between Michael Eric Dyson and Cornel West — a rift years in the making and now clearly delineated in the form of Dyson’s essay on West in the New Republic, “The Ghost of Cornel West” — this has all the hallmarks of a messy divorce between two public, black intellectuals who were, perhaps, better served keeping things offline. Maybe try to squash their beef in the privacy of an on-campus office or in...

The votes are in from a new TiVo poll to find the country's "Favorite TV Dad." It's no surprise to me that the winner was Bill Cosby's Heathcliff Huxtable. What a paradox: Even though America's long-lasting warmth for Cosby and his classic 1980s series "The Cosby Show" lingers, inside the black community, Cosby is a lightning rod for criticism and abuse.When "The Cosby Show" hit the airwaves, the star opened himself up to vicious attacks from some cultural pundits who seemed to have a political investment in racism and division and no patience for Cosby's positive portrayal of the successful...