Jay Ambrose, identified as director of editorial policy for Scripps Howard newspapers, begins a biting critique of the Bellesiles controversy in the New Haven Register (link via History News Network) by observing:
A book on guns and early Americans has been proven a fraud, and here’s what I find most fascinating: The professional historians loved and praised the bogus offering — largely, it seems, because they thought it helped the cause of gun control — while initially scorning a software engineer who exposed its fallacies.
Closing, he quotes Bellesilles’ response to the Emory Report — that if we investigate “every scholar who challenges truth, it will not be long before no challenging scholarly books are published” — and concludes:
Could he have meant that lying to make political points becomes difficult when people check up on you? Let’s hope it does become difficult.
In between he says what he really thinks.
This seems to be part and parcel with another seriously bad problem that’s been growing among the establishment, reactionary Left: characterizing vigorous dissent and criticism as “censorship.”
I’m sorry, but that’s just indicative of a sickness to me. For academia, it’s inexcusable.