Sunday, March 08, 2009

"Swift-boating" Judge Jones

Judge John Jones III was the judge who presided over Kitzmiller v. Dover Area School District, in which "Intelligent Design" was thoroughly deflated.

The reaction to his decision has been most acerbic on the part of the Intelligent Design / Intelligent Origin Theorists (ID/IOTs).

Although the DI uses the same public relations firm as the "Swift Boat Veterans" did, they picked the wrong guy to keelhaul. Judge John E. Jones III is a churchgoer, a lifelong Republican, appointed to his Federal position by President George W. Bush. As a New York Times piece recently noted:
His supporters include Senators Arlen Specter and Rick Santorum of Pennsylvania, and his mentor is Tom Ridge, the former governor of Pennsylvania and homeland security secretary.
Arlen Specter, Tom Ridge, and Rick Santorum. Not exactly your typical liberal coalition. Wait a minute! Isn't Santorum the one who tried to introduce Intelligent Design into the "No Child Left Behind" Act? Doesn't the DI pull his strings when it comes to pronouncements on science and education? These are heavy hitters, well connected to the current administration. From the outset, an impartial observer might have expected that Judge Jones would be predisposed toward the Bush-endorsed concept of ID.

2 comments:

Indicator Veritatis said...

In what way has he been "swift-boated"? I see no reference in the blog to the news item.

Karl said...

Did you follow the link from the post title?

The "swift-boating" used in the linked article, refers to a judge described before issuing his decision as:
...a "renaissance man" and "the right kind of person to be presiding over a trial of such emotional and historic importance."
After his decision, the Discovery Institute calls his decision:
...an attempt by an activist federal judge to stop the spread of a scientific idea and even to prevent criticism of Darwinian evolution through government-imposed censorship rather than open debate...
The DI didn't like his ruling, so now it's time to complain about his newly-discovered activism.