Recently, CNN interviewed a law professor from the University of Missouri named Frank O. Bowman III on the topic of impeachment. The published transcript of this interview epitomizes two sinister forces at work that do not bode well for the future: the deceptive teaching of history and the media’s complicity in dispersing these inaccuracies. The CNN interviewer begins by asking a series of questions about the history of impeachment and how it might apply to President Trump. Professor Bowman then describes what the US Constitution says about impeachment and goes into the particular cases of Andrew Johnson, Richard Nixon, and Bill Clinton. In his answers, Professor Bowman creates an alternate version of history – much of which is factually incorrect. Here are examples:
1. He gives the following definition of impeachment – “We can impeach a president when his conduct subverts our form of government — the rules and norms that make up our constitutional order — and threatens tyrannical government by the chief executive without regard to the legislature or the law.” While poetic, this is not what is written in the Constitution or in any of its 27 amendments. The Constitution is very brief and precise on impeachment:
Article II, Section 4 – “The President, Vice President and all Civil Officers of the United States, shall be removed from Office on Impeachment for, and Conviction of, Treason, Bribery, or other high Crimes and Misdemeanors.”
That’s it. Very clear and unambiguous. No need to parse it or find some deep hidden meaning. In the only two cases of presidential impeachment in our history, the sitting president committed an obvious and easily provable crime. In the subsequent trial for each case, that crime was not deemed “high” enough for removal from office.
2. Professor Bowman is entirely incorrect about the reason for Andrew Johnson’s impeachment. Bowman paints Johnson as a racist, claiming he was impeached because he wanted to “…consign black people to the status of permanent peons…”. The historically accurate fact is that Johnson was impeached because he broke a law called the “Tenure of Office Act” when he improperly fired his Secretary of War Edwin Stanton. It had nothing to do with racism or the status of black people.
3. Professor Bowman dwells on the case of Richard Nixon as the closest comparison for an impeachment case against Trump. This is meaningless on its face as President Nixon was NOT impeached.
4. Professor Bowman suggests that a reason the Senate voted not to remove Bill Clinton from office after his impeachment was because his behavior was “…private, pretty inconsequential and unrelated to his presidential role...”. We agree that an argument could be made that the sexual exploits of a president are in fact private and inconsequential to his role. In this case however, Bill Clinton was not impeached because of his promiscuity. He was impeached because he committed two federal crimes – lying under oath to Congress and obstructing justice.
We’ve all seen blatant cases of fake news and how easily they proliferate. Just this week an MSNBC reporter (Joyce Vance) falsely claimed that Fox News wasn’t going to televise the Mueller testimony. That report spread like wildfire even though it was 100% false. The CNN interview described above is a much more subtle version of fake news. Any listener’s suspicion that false information is being delivered in that interview is reduced because the messenger is an “academic”. Also, the subject matter requires some true knowledge of history as a basis for comparison, which the casual viewer may not possess. In this way, a lot of listeners will just accept the expert’s “analysis” and not see the blatant revision of history. CNN happily collaborated, of course, accepting the words coming from the professor’s mouth as unassailable because of his stature as a legal expert and educator.
This interview also provides a glimpse into how our higher education system becomes infected with tainted or outright false content. For many academicians like Professor Bowman, political ideology has become more important than teaching students historical truth. To distinguish fact from bias, students must now go the extra mile and “fact-check” what their educators are telling them. Unfortunately, most don’t.
There is no need for any of us to speculate as to what kind of individual emerges from a high school and/or college program infested with educators like Professor Bowman. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez and Ilhan Omar are living examples that remind us almost daily of the results. They’ve been taught an alternative view of America conjured by taking current day “politically correct” values and norms and applying them to past events without any of the accompanying historical context. Professor Bowman illustrates that they are not being taught the actual historic facts. Their understanding of the Constitution, and the compromises necessary at the time it was drafted to assure ratification, is therefore grievously compromised. Lacking knowledge about the true origins of our government, or worse having it supplanted with false information, is lamentable for any American. It is disastrous for an elected member of Congress, who is a federal lawmaker. It’s also a big part of the reason why the younger generation has difficulty feeling and expressing patriotism.
For example, a popular activist sentiment today is that the founding fathers were tainted with racism because they didn’t reject slavery at the time the Constitution was written. However, most historians agree that in the context of the time, the Constitution would never have been completed, let alone ratified, had a compromise on slavery not been reached. Insistence on either completely embracing or totally outlawing slavery was a deal-breaker. Without this compromise we wouldn’t have the country or freedoms we have today. Slavery would likely have persisted longer than it actually did1. Many of us, including those most concerned and vocal about racism, might not even exist here today. That reality is simply ignored and replaced with the revisionist fantasy that an America free from slavery and racism would have naturally unfolded had the Founding Fathers insisted upon immediate abolishment of slavery.
In addition, many of this generation emerge from our education system unmotivated and apathetic, do not pay much attention to government, and often neglect to vote in elections. There is an irony to this in that the darker view of American history being taught minimizes the desire to become involved in government. Those in this group that do decide to run for office are often the flower and culmination of the propaganda program that leftist academics strive to produce. At the moment, the relatively young “Squad” and their supporters are small in number and unable to swing any important House votes. Eventually, the rest of the members of Congress will age off and be replaced with this younger generation. What is now just a 4-person squad of mal-educated members of Congress could soon grow to a small army.
We know that not all colleges, professors, and academicians are corrupting their students with disinformation. But those that are have had a demonstrably negative effect by polluting young minds. The specter of a generation of apathetic, ill-informed citizens, combined with lawmakers who despise and misrepresent our country and its origins is appalling. It foreshadows a truly dystopian America – socialist, intolerant, and insolvent. If there is ever another major civil conflict in this country, we predict it will be rooted in this issue. Thankfully, we currently have a President that not only recognizes the problem but isn’t afraid to combat it. This is one of those quagmires that is so deep a lot of muck and dirt will have to be slung around in order to climb out.
1The formation of our federal government by way of the Constitution provided a means to create laws that applied to all states, slave states and non-slave states alike. Almost immediately after the Constitution was ratified, several anti-slavery federal laws were passed that included eliminating the African slave trade (1807) and limiting the spread of slavery to new states (1820). Enforcement of these and other anti-slavery federal laws, which would not have existed if the Constitution wasn’t ratified, ultimately led to the Civil War and the end of slavery. Without a strong federal government in opposition to the southern states, there would not have been any significant force compelling them to abandon slavery.