[Mb-civic] FW: Bill Moyers: There is no tomorrow -- Possible Correction

[George R. Milman]

Following my earlier email about the Moyers piece I received the following
from a friend:  

 

Here's what appeared in the "Christian press":

 

Bill Moyers smears ex-Reagan official 
James Watt says false quote used to cast him as religious nut 
------------------------------------------------------------------------ 
Posted: February 8, 2005 
1:00 a.m. Eastern 

C 2005 WorldNetDaily.com 

Former Secretary of the Interior James Watt says commentator Bill Moyers
smeared him by falsely claiming he was a religious nut who told the U.S.
Congress that protecting the environment was not important because Jesus
would come back soon. 

Watt, who served under President Reagan, has asked Moyers to apologize for
his assertions in a speech published Jan. 30 as an op-ed piece in the
Minneapolis Star Tribune. 

Commenting on President Bush after receiving an environmental award from
Harvard Medical School, Moyers said the administration's environmental
policies are "based on theology" and therefore "delusional." 

Moyers said: 

Remember James Watt, President Ronald Reagan's first secretary of the
interior? My favorite online environmental journal, the ever-engaging Grist,
reminded us recently of how James Watt told the U.S. Congress that
protecting natural resources was unimportant in light of the imminent return
of Jesus Christ. In public testimony he said, "after the last tree is
felled, Christ will come back." 

Beltway elites snickered. The press corps didn't know what he was talking
about. But James Watt was serious. 

Watt came upon the Moyers piece through the popular weblog Powerline and
called one of its contributors, John Hindraker, to set the record straight. 

Watt said the quote is fraudulent, originating in a book published in 1990
by Austin Miles. The claim that he made the statement before Congress was
added by Grist, a left-leaning online journal. 

But Hindraker says the real issue is not the quote, but what Moyers says
about its context. 

Moyers claims Watt "told the U.S. Congress that protecting natural resources
was unimportant in light of the imminent return of Jesus Christ." But the
only time Watt can recall a reference to the Second Coming in congressional
testimony, he is on record espousing the opposite of what Moyers claims. 

He forwarded to Hindraker this passage of text from the House Interior
Committee session in February 1981:



Rep. Jim Weaver, D-Ore: Do you want to see on lands under your management,
the sustained yield policies continued? 

Watt: Absolutely. 

Weaver: I am very pleased to hear that. Then I will make one final
statement. ... I believe very strongly that we should not, for example, use
up all the oil that took nature a billion years to make in one century. 

We ought to leave a few drops of it for our children, their children. They
are going to need it. ... I wonder if you agree, also, in the general
statement that we should leave some of our resources -- I am now talking
about scenic areas or preservation, but scenic resources for our children?
Not just gobble them up all at once? 

Watt: Absolutely. That is the delicate balance the secretary of the interior
must have, to be steward for the natural resources for this generation as
well as future generations. 

I do not know how many future generations we can count on before the Lord
returns, whatever it is we have to manage with a skill to leave the
resources needed for future generations. 

Weaver: Mr. Chairman, I want to conclude, if I might, seeing the secretary
brought up the Lord, with a story. 

The Chairman: The conversation will be in order. 

Weaver: In my district, Mr. Chairman, there are some who do not like
wilderness. They do not like it at all. I would try to plead with them. I go
around my district and say do you not believe -- I would plead with their
religious sensibilities -- that we should leave some of our land the way we
received it from the Creator? 

I have said this frequently throughout my district. I got a letter from a
constituent. ... He said, "Mr. Weaver, if the Lord wanted to leave his
forest lands, some of them in the way that we got them from Him," he said,
"why did He send His only Son down to earth as a carpenter?"


[Laughter] 

Weaver: That stumped us. That stumped us until one of my aides, an absolute
genius, said that the Lord Jesus before He determined His true mission spent
40 days and 40 nights in the wilderness. 

[Laughter] 

Hindraker noted that Watt's biblical reference was "not fire-breathing or
apocalyptic, as suggested by Moyers, but rather part of a friendly, even
jocular exchange with members of the Interior Committee." Watt gave
Hindraker a copy of a letter he wrote to Moyers: 

I have never thought, believed or said such words. Nor have I ever said
anything similar to that thought which could be interpreted by a reasonable
person to mean anything similar to the quote attributed to me. 

Because you are at least average in intelligence and have a basic
understanding of Christian beliefs, you know that no Christian would believe
what you attributed to me. 

Because you have had the privilege of serving in the White House under
President Johnson, you know that no person believing such a thing would be
qualified for a presidential appointment, nor would he be confirmed by the
United States Senate, and if confirmed and said such a thing would he be
allowed to continue in service. 

Since you must have known such a statement would not have been made and you
refused or failed to do any primary research on this supposed quote, what
was your motive in printing such a damnable lie? 

Hindraker comments: "Before the advent of the blogosphere, Bill Moyers --
arrogant, rich, powerful and well-connected -- would merely have thrown Mr.
Watt's letter into the trash. Today, he may still do so. But he and his
friends in the liberal media no longer have a monopoly on information, and
those who have been defamed by them, like James Watt, now have the means to
make their voices heard." 


------- End of Forwarded Message -------

 

I then checked on line but could not find a correction by the Washington
Post, nor one on the Grist site, but I did find the article to be seen at
http://www.mediainfo.com/eandp/news/article_display.jsp?vnu_content_id=10007
97041.  

 

If this turns out to be true, it will be dismaying because Moyers has been a
trusted source of information for a long time and I would have expected
better.  I will certainly check sources more carefully in the future before
sending anything along.  That will be a good thing in any event.

 

Geo.

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