Obama Education Czar: failed to report homosexual statutory rape

You seem to meander back and forth between calling this reporting and editorializing. You can't promote a position (editorialize) until you have already formed one-- then you blame the author for that.

What is a "hatchet job?" Is it an opinion that one disagrees with?

If it happened as described, Jennings apparently broke a law in exercising poor judgment; he did this right in an area of expertise for which he is being nominated. Something to ponder...

 

A "hatchet job" is writing that serves no purpose other than to sling mud at someone, regardless of accuracy. This article qualifies.

This has been asked a half dozen times, but I will ask again for you to cite the law or policy that Jennings broke, assuming that the story was 100% true.

The only thing to ponder here is to what depth the GOP smear machine will stoop to try and tar anyone and everyone associated with the Obama admnnistration.

 

Where is the inaccuracy? The audio of Jennings backs up whatever facts seem to be asserted by the author.

The law? Article 179 Section 37-A...

 

The author assumes quite a lot and asserts things that clearly show his bigotry, which is the biggest reason that his interpretation of the facts is questionable at best. You have an obvious bigot interpreting material from a speech given 20 years ago about an event that occurred years before the speech. I would assert that the only fact that exists here is that a bigot doesn't want an openly gay man in a position of power in the Obama administration.

So, first you claim that he "broke a law exercising poor judgement" and then when asked to cite the law, you give some random garbage? Way to support your opinion.

 

The speech was given in 2000-- only 9 years ago. Why does Jennings refuse to comment on the events anymore?

Can we assume that the facts as delivered by Jennings himself are accurate? What facts did the author "add" to the telling?

Is it just possible that the author doesn't want a reckless person in that office? Why is it okay for you to run with the "facts" you choose to recognize but you don't give the author the same latitude? I would assert it is because you disagree with his opinion...

Sorry, my Complete Set of The Laws of the Fifty States are still in boxes...

Have you investigated, yourself, the charges that Jennings broke a law way back then or are you just choosing to believe what you want? I'm not so concerned about whether or not a law was broken as I am about him riding the crest of a bad but retrospectively popular position in the gay community.

Would you have wanted your son going to a stranger's house like that? If not, why not?

 

Giddy -- it's a hatchet job because it pretends to be concerned about something I'm highly doubtful it really is: The non-reporting by a 24YO of a vague story told to him 20 years ago.

This....somehow...with the benefit of 20 years of hindsight, and a complete lack of context is news. It, somehow, goes to the root of the man's judgment?

"hindsight" is actually not really fair either -- because it implies that based on what we know today, he should have made a different decision. Since we have no info on how the kids life turned out-- I don't think you can make that stretch.

But....he broke the rules. HE BROKE THE RULES. That's what's bothering the author and you and the people who've embraced this article. THE RULES! His judgment! He's not fit. Got nothing to do with him being gay.

And meanwhile -- 20 years ago or so -- the same timeframe....the two most recent Presidents were dabbling with illegal drugs. (albeit at different parties). But that's different.

Sure.

 

Who cares? The only people that seem to be up in arms about this are people with an obvious bias against anyone and everyone associated with the Obama administration. He probably refuses to comment because he doesn't feel like justifying an action he took as a young, closeted gay man to bigots who just want to tear him down. I would refuse to comment if I were in his situation too. The facts don't warrant an explanation.

Personally, I don't think Jennings' speech needs to have been factual at all. It could have been an amalgam of people and situations that he boiled down to a fictional anecdote. It could have been something that happened in his own life and he changed the story to put himself in the place of the authority figure he got advice from. It may well have been 100% true, but the point is that we simply don't know.

As far as opinions that were asserted...

We don't know this. Based on the speech, the boy hooked up with someone "older," but we don't know anything about the "older man," and as such we cannot factually conclude that statutory rape occurred. Chances are good that if it happened the way it was put out there that this may be the case, but the author assumes it.

What state law was violated? This has been asked more than a half dozen times and not one person has posted anything from any state's laws that would have required Jennings to report what the boy told him.

Jennings did not encourage the relationship, he admonished the boy to use protection because the country was in the middle of the late '80s AIDS crisis. Telling someone to use a condom does not equal encouraging a relationship.

In that account, it was not "encouraging" a relationship, it was making sure the boy was being safe and using protection when having sex. I am sure the happiness the boy felt was also partially die to the fact that he found someone he could trust with the secret of his sexual preference, so this entire passage is garbage.

The last two paragraphs of this hit piece are a ball of unsubstantiated tripe and bigoted prejudice, so I will not pick it apart. If you can't see the bigotry in those passages, I truly feel sorry for you.

No, based on the facts in evidence and the article itself, the author is a bigot who doesn't want a gay man in a position of power in the Department of Education.

It is because I disagree with his bigotry.

The only place where the breaking of a law in this case has been mentioned is in Faux "News" and in this article. Since neither of those reports actually cited the law in question, I don't feel out of bounds at all in assuming that they are full of s***. They are the ones who made the assertion, it is up to them (or the people defending them) to back up the assertion with evidence.

Of course not, but I would hope that if he had, that he could tell me about it rather than having to seek out someone else to talk to because he didn't think his father would be able to handle it.

However, if that had been my son and the facts of the case were as stated by Jennings, then the only thing I would have hoped he would do differently is urge the boy to talk to other people about the liason, specifically his parents. Of course, it was the '80s and parents then weren't as accepting of gay children, not that they are overly sympathetic now, but it was much worse in the '80s.

As it is, we don't know that Jennings didn't urge the boy to talk to his parents, mostly because the event was so long ago that the "facts" have been muddied by time. Unfortunately, now they are also soiled by bigots.

 

You can't make this **** up...

 

oops sorry basso.

/thread

 

People have lost appointments to prestigious posts because they failed to pay SS taxes on maids working in their home.... and you don't think this is worth investigating.

You put way too many conclusions on this. I've not said he is not fit to serve. I've just commented on this past "event." I have a curiosity about it that you don't seem to have because you give Jennings the break on every point of consideration. I'd like more answers.

If we don't know, we raise questions and ask for explanations. Those who can't or won't answer seem suspicious not sympathetic.

The author assumes that what Jennings said in the tape is true... which is also a more incriminating account of what he has admitted to before... and you don't think there's anything to look into?

Can't find the boxes. What state law was NOT violated?

So you think "I hope you used a condom" was a more appropriate answer than "Don't ever go home with a stranger like that...."

I'm concentrating on the "facts" as offered up by Jennings own telling of the tale and commenting on what inquiry it should or need not give birth to.

My only exposure to this story has been this thread, so I can't comment on how anyone is treating the story.... except those here.

The facts are reported by Jennings himself. Usually when we muddle facts over time, we make them more flattering to ourselves; we don't make our mistakes to be worse than they actually were. That alone should give us pause, but you just thrust it aside with all certaintly.

Congratulations! You've used "bigot" more in one posting than any other CF.com member in history.

 

Actually I think everyone is making a bigger deal out of this than is necessary. I've said a couple of times that I think this was a naive mistake made by a young teacher. I'm more troubled that he doesn't see it as a mistake but rather seizes to capitalize on it with the right audience... and deny it to the rest of the world.

Jennings supporters want to minimize the event and want to demonize the critics but I suspect the truth lay somewhere in the middle.

Those two presidents have fessed up to their dalliances with drugs and not hid from the facts but Jennings dodges his own "mistaken past" and he gets a pass from many of you here. Why a double standard?

As I indicated earlier, if this story had been about a 15 or 16 YO girl that got herself picked up by an adult male and went to his house for sex, more people would be up in arms. Why the double standard?

Whether or not any law was broken is not that material to the story for me. I'm more concerned about his tacitly promoting reckless behavior. "I hope you used a condom," while understandable in the context of Jennings' loss, is a completely inadequate dealing with problematic behavior by, perhaps, a barely legal kid.

That smudgy driver's license is a resounding piece of evidence, I tell you! Actually the hazy picture looks kind of like me but I was born well before 1971....

 

http://www.cnn.com/2009/POLITICS/10/02/jennings.student/

By Jessica Yellin
CNN National Political Correspondent
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WASHINGTON (CNN) -- A former student of an Obama Administration official is coming to his defense, as critics seek to use a 20-year-old incident to call for the official's resignation.

Kevin Jennings, who heads the Department of Education's Office of Safe and Drug Free Schools, is under fire for counseling advice he gave a teenage gay student more than two decades ago.

Conservative groups charge that Jennings, who is openly gay, condoned statutory rape and child molestation. That's in reference to an incident in 1988 when Jennings, who was a teacher at the time, did not tell authorities that a 16-year-old student revealed to Jennings that he'd had sex with an older man.

Now that former student is speaking out for the first time and telling CNN he did not have sex with that man at all. He did not elaborate on what he told Jennings at the time. Jennings could not be reached for comment late Friday.

In a statement obtained by CNN, the former student, who wanted to be called Brewster, wrote: "Since I was of legal consent at the time, the 15-minute conversation I had with Mr. Jennings 21 years ago is of nobody's concern but his and mine. However, since the Republican noise machine is so concerned about my 'well-being' and that of America's students, they'll be relieved to know that I was not 'inducted' into homosexuality, assaulted, raped, or sold into sexual slavery."

The former student recounted what happened at the time and maintained there was no sexual contact.

"In 1988, I had taken a bus home for the weekend, and on the return trip met someone who was also gay. The next day, I had a conversation with Mr. Jennings about it. I had no sexual contact with anybody at the time, though I was entirely legally free to do so. I was a 16-year-old going through something most of us have experienced: adolescence."
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"Brewster" also lashed out at the critics who have used the incident to attack Jennings.

"I find it regrettable that the people who have the compassion and integrity to protect our nation's students are themselves in need of protection from homophobic smear attacks. Were it not for Mr. Jennings' courage and concern for my well-being at that time in my life, I doubt I'd be the proud gay man that I am today."

Critics contend that Brewster was 15 at the time of the incident. But CNN has obtained a copy of Brewster's driver's license which verifies he was 16 at the time. The legal age of consent for sexual activities in Massachusetts is 16.

Jennings, who has published several books, has written and spoken about the incident. In one book he writes that when he was a 24-year-old teacher, a gay student confided that he'd had sex with an older man. Jennings didn't report the incident to authorities. Instead he writes, "I listened, sympathized, and offered advice." He has subsequently said he told the student "I hope you used a condom."

Jennings has admitted he could have done a better job dealing with the incident. Education Secretary Arne Duncan and the White House are both standing behind Jennings.

But conservatives have been emboldened since their attacks on environmental advisor Van Jones and National Endowment for the Arts spokesman Yosi Sargent forced their resignations, and the knives are drawn for Jennings.

Led by conservative commentators, Jones was attacked for once calling Republicans "assholes" and signing a "9/11 Truth" petition that suggested the Bush administration knew about the September 11 terror attacks in advance. Jones was also a co-founder of a group that has led a drive to convince advertisers to abandon Fox News' Glenn Beck after Beck said on the air that President Obama was a "racist" with "a deep hatred of white people."

Sargent came under fire for his participation in a conference call during which the NEA encouraged artists to participate in a project, led by first lady Michelle Obama, about national service. Conservatives, again led by Beck, accused the agency of attempting to create Nazi-style propaganda. Sargent stepped down from his position as director of communications, but the NEA said he remained with the agency in another capacity.

In a statement released earlier this week by the Department of Education, Jennings said, "Twenty-one years later, I can see how I should have handled the situation differently. I should have asked for more information and consulted medical or legal authorities. Teachers back then had little training and guidance about this kind of thing. All teachers should have a basic level of preparedness."

Despite the revelation that "Brewster" was of age at the time, Tony Perkins, head of the conservative organization Family Research Council, called for Jennings' resignation and said, "You do not need special training to know child molestation is wrong."

But Jennings has some determined supporters. Gerald Tirozzi, head of the National Association of Secondary School Principles, recommended Jennings for the job.

"I've been working with Kevin for over seven or eight years now and his agenda is not only about gay kids," he said. "It's been all kids."

Tirozzi said that Jennings' expertise in bullying has earned him recognition from school principals in conservative as well as progressive districts.

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Questions remain:

If the 16 YO boy had no sexual contact with the man, why did Jennings express a hope that the boy had used a condom?

How does a closeted 16 YO meet another gay person on a bus ride home?

 

do you now know the difference between an OP-ED and a news article?

does it matter? whatever the answer to those are Jennings still did not fail to report a crime as what you and basso accused him of

 

what's the crime?

 

First sentence FAIL

 

Uh, that would be a charge leveled at the parents for letting their minor child run around unsupervised.

 

What is reported in the "op-ed" is verbatim of the recording of Jennings in 2000.

It's a huge inconsistency in the facts.... so what are we to believe? Jennings recounts making a statement that would directly reflect the knowledge that the boy engaged in a sexual relation with the other guy.... yet now 20 years later Brewster is saying that there never was a sexual relation with the other guy.

I'm commenting on the commentary; I'm not the one doing the accusing. It is fair to raise speculation based on the facts that have been reported-- although they do appear to be changing as the days go by....