Bennish: Extreme Makeover

Bennish before


Bennish after


Jay Bennish, the liberal elite's favorite teacher, found a very friendly, happy place to plead his case in the court of public opinion.

Bennish, of course, is the teacher who was exposed as propagandizing his students in his World Geography class at Overland High School in Colorado. A student in the class, sixteen-year-old Sean Allen, taped one of Bennish's America-hating, Bush-bashing rants.

Now that the tape of Bennish's words has become public, Bennish is undergoing an extreme makeover, probably on the advice of his lawyer.

Tuesday morning on Today, Matt Lauer acted as the stylist in the makeover project, helping Bennish to alter his image and give him an entirely new look.

The Bennish that Lauer assisted was not the same Bennish heard on the tape made by Sean Allen.

The transformation was unbelievable. I mean that literally. The Today Bennish was unconvincing. He was a living lie.



I do find it interesting that Today had "Teacher Compares Bush to Hitler" on the screen. That might seem to run counter to the stated goal of presenting Bennish as a respectable teacher and Lauer's obvious sympathy for him.

However, I think the libs at Today are so extreme that they don't realize viewers would find the thought of a high school teacher making such a comparison to be inappropriate. It's possible that they believe that line is completely reasonable; and a composed, credible Bennish would lend further credibility to the "Bush is like Hilter" message. All good stuff from a lib's point of view.

Another possibility is that displaying "Bush" and "Hitler" up on the screen together is symptomatic of their Bush Derangement Syndrome. They just couldn't pass up on that opportunity.

In my opinion, a better caption would read:

"TEACHER ABUSES HIS AUTHORITY"

Interview Transcript

Lauer: "And Jay Bennish is here for his first interview. Mr. Bennish good to see you, good morning.

Jay Bennish: "Good morning."

OOOH! What a nice young man!

Lauer: "You should say right off the bat I know you think that his one particular excerpt of this lesson, this lecture has been played over and over again and perhaps it's been taken out of context because this was a much longer discussion, a 50 minute class. But do you understand why there's an uproar over this?"

Bennish: "Sure of course. I mean I think it's only naturally especially the way it's been presented that people are going to be upset and in this country there's a lively democracy and people are entitled to their various opinions."

Lauer: "Is it being presented incorrectly?"

Bennish: "In my opinion, yes."

Poor Bennish, the dedicated teacher, is being victimized.

It's a vast right-wing conspiracy. Yeah, that's the ticket!

Lauer: "Alright gimme, gimme your side then before I play the tape."

Bennish: "Well the first thing I'd like to do is to say thank you so much to all of the students and my family and friends who've been so supportive to me over these past couple of weeks. It really means a lot to me to see the overwhelming students, the overwhelming number of students come out and, and, to my defense. That really means a lot."

This isn't the Oscars.

This wasn't the time to make a thank you speech.

Lauer: "And yet you're sitting here as a guy who's on paid leave so obviously the school board is investigating this closely. They want to know if you violated school policy on presenting balanced viewpoints and even intimidating students. Let me play the tape and then we can talk about it on the other side."

SOFTBALL!

[Bennish on tape: "'It's our duty as Americans to use the military to go out into the world and make the world like us.' Sounds a lot like the things Adolf Hitler used to say. 'We're the only ones who are right, everyone else is backwards and it's our job to conquer the world and make sure that they all live just like we want them to.' Now I'm not saying that Bush and Hitler are exactly the same. Obviously, they're not, okay? But there are some eerie similarities to the tones that they use."]

Lauer: "Again that's one portion of a much larger discussion but you don't make statements like that without looking for a reaction. The reaction you got is it what you expected?"

Bennish: "From the students? Yes. From the national media and the attention from people all over the country? Obviously not. You know my job as a, as a teacher is to challenge students to think critically about issues that are affecting our world and our society. And you know the process of cognitive dissonance is one way to activate their minds and to get them to think about these various things."

This is classic CYA.

Bennish's lecture was a speech. He was espousing his personal politics. That twenty minutes of tape was not about getting kids to think critically. It was about Bennish criticizing America and President Bush -- pure propaganda.

Lauer: "As, is that role to, to take on that role as a teacher, to get students to think. Should teachers in your opinion be allowed to say anything? Pure freedom of speech."

Bennish: "I certainly think there could be some constraints to what teachers would say but everything that was discussed in the class fits within the curriculum of the class. My class syllabus clearly outlines all of the material that will be covered. This is signed by parents, this is registered with the school. It's been approved by the school."

Allen's parents disagree.

Lauer: "Had you gotten complaints from students? Had parents called saying, 'My student is not comfortable with some of the messages you're delivering in class?'"

Bennish: "No I have not and, you know, like I, like you said and I would like to reiterate that this is 20 minutes, most people are not listening to the entire tape. And this is 20 minutes out of a 50 minute class and the rest of the class provides the balance."

Sean Allen, the student who taped Bennish, insists that there was no balance. He taped the lecture, when Bennish was spewing the "hate America" stuff. The rest of the time was spent on other class business.

Bennish is misrepresenting what happened. Other students in the class back up Allen's story.

Lauer: "The, the, the family here, the, the student's family didn't go to the school board with this tape. They went..."

Bennish: "They never, they never contacted me and they have still never contacted me with any type of concerns."

Lauer: "They basically shopped it around to conservative media outlets and when they finally released it to one it created an uproar and on the tape you can hear Sean Allen asking you questions that seem to be egging you on a little bit. Do you feel you were set up?"

How disgusting!

Lauer is suggesting that Allen laid a trap, that he set Bennish up.

NO ONE CAN BE SET UP TO SAY WHAT BENNISH SAID.

"[Capitalism] is at odds with humanity, at odds with caring and compassion, at odds with human rights."

"Who is the probably the single most violent nation on earth? United States."

"Do you see the dangerous precedent that we have set by illegally invading another country and violating their soverenity in the name of protecting against a potential future attack?"

"We want to keep the world divided. Now do we really want to kill innocent people? I don’t know. I don’t know the answer to that. I know that there are some Americans that do. "

Bennish was not set up. He was brainwashing.

Bennish: "Well you know the lecture initially was an introduction to world geography and we were covering very, you know stereotypical terms like mental mapping and cultural landscapes. And I was receiving questions from Sean as well as from other students trying to get me to respond to the State of the Union address that was the night before and I explained to the students that in the case of the State of the Union this is applicable to a world geography class because for many people around the world this speech might impact their lives more so than the speeches that their own, own leaders give."

Lauer: "And after the portion that we've heard you did say something else and I want to, in fairness, play that portion as well."

[Bennish on tape: "I'm not in any way implying that you should agree with me. I don't even know if I'm necessarily taking a position but what I'm trying to get you to do is to think, right, that, about these issues more in depth, you know? And not just to take things from the surface. And I'm glad you asked all your questions because they're good legitimate questions and hopefully that allowed other people to begin to think about some of those things too."]

Lauer: "So after, after, comparing Bush in loosely to Hitler and questioning the legality of the war in Iraq and, and, and stating the U.S. is one of the most violent nations on earth is that enough of a disclaimer in your opinion?"

Gee, I wonder where Lauer stands on this debate. His questions and comments are so fair and balanced.

Bennish: "Well you know like I said this is a small section of one class. You know my job as a social studies teacher is to argue alternative perspectives and viewpoints so that students are aware of those point of views. They do not necessarily reflect my own views. They are simply thrown out there to encourage critical thought so that students are aware that those views do exist in the world and that they can then contemplate them and decide to make up their own mind. And I would like to reiterate also that all of my students are encouraged to take those types of things and go home, reflect on that and look at other current events and get extra credit regardless of what their viewpoints are."

If you believe that Bennish's rant did not reflect his own views, then you are hopelessly naive.

Also, Allen says that students were not offered the opportunity to get extra credit by challenging Bennish on his frequent anti-Bush, anti-American screeds. If they were, he says he would have jumped at the chance.

Lauer: "Let me just make a point that Sean Allen's family now says they didn't want to get you fired. They don't want you to be fired. Do you think you'll be reinstated and would you welcome Sean Allen back into your class if you are?"

Bennish: "Of course I would. Like you heard me say in the tape, you know until this all happened I really thought that Sean was asking good questions and that allowed other students to hear that particular viewpoint and you know, it just adds to the whole dynamic of, of the critical thought that was taking place."

Lauer fails to mention that Sean Allen was originally scheduled to appear on Today, on Tuesday. At the last minute, Today rescinded that invitation.

Interesting, isn't it?

Something that really bugs me about how the libs are reacting to this story is their insistence that it's about free speech, that Bennish's voice shouldn't be silenced.

Well, if it's acceptable for Bennish to spew his anti-American propaganda in a public school classroom, based on the argument that he's enlightening the students by providing them with a different perspective, then should a teacher be allowed to enlighten students with a daily prayer? Not as promoting a religion, but as an exercise to help students to think critically.

The point is there most definitely are limits on speech in the classroom. Certain topics and opinions have been determined as unacceptable for teachers to discuss with their students. Even Bennish acknowledges that.

His appearance with Lauer was simply an attempt to reframe the issue, allowing Bennish to present himself as a victim and misunderstood, rather than a raving lunatic Leftist posing as a Geography teacher.

That's a tough sell. Lauer tried his best, but I'm afraid the damage control mission was unsuccessful.

Why do I get the feeling that Ward Churchill is Bennish's hero?