Accusations and Smears - An Interview with Ward Churchill (Part 3 of 5)

Joshua Frank: It does seem like the left has abandoned you. What about lefty-liberals like Al Franken and Bill Maher?

Ward Churchill: Oops! You're right. I was passing right by Franken, who, as I understand it, has lately joined the chorus by using the televised version of his Air America program -- I guess you're aware that Air America is Clear Channel's "liberal alternative" to itself, eh? -- to parrot O'Reilly and Hannity with regard to yours truly. The problem is that he wasn't trying to do some funny impersonations; he was apparently serious. That being so, how about you ask him for an interview on the theme of, how did he put it in his book, "lies, and the lying liars who tell them"?

JF: Franken won’t return my calls [laughter].

WC: Ha! Yeah, well Maher's a different story. He was one of the very few people, aside from myself, Susan Sontag is the only other one I could name off the top of my head, who openly contested the way the hijackers were officially depicted in the immediate aftermath of 9-1-1. Lost his job over it, too, and you've got to respect that, even if, like me, you're not especially in tune with his overall politics.

Besides, after Maher picked up his HBO gig, he had Janet Reno and me on the same show. That gave me a chance to ask her face-to-face whether, since Waco, she's had occasion to reconsider her ideas on how to respond to suspected child abuse. She gave me a sort of puzzled look, so I explained how some of us tend to think that sending the FBI to burn the kids alive wasn't much of a "solution". It really wigged her out, and I'll always have a soft spot where Maher's concerned, since, however unwittingly, he afforded me the opportunity to impose what may be the closest to an actual penalty she ever pays for what she did to those poor kids.