Barbara Cargill, R-The Woodlands, is having a tough go of it to begin her tenure as the Texas State Board of Education gavel-master. But lame “blame the media” and “you were never meant to hear that” excuses from her and her supporters (including former board chairman Don McLeroy) will do little to fix the damage the new board chairwoman’s own comments have caused.
We’re talking of comments from Cargill — made just days after Gov. Rick Perry appointed her as board chair — that offended her fellow board members. For instance, board member Bob Craig, R-Lubbock, did not appreciate Cargill’s suggestion there there are only “six true conservative Christians on the board.” Do a little math and it becomes clear Cargill had taken it upon herself to de-Christianize some of her fellow board members, including conservative Republicans like Craig.
In a Houston Chronicle story this week, Cargill tried to explain herself:
“My comments certainly were not intended to be divisive. It was for a particular audience.”
You see, Bob, sure she said it, but you were never meant to hear it. She thought she was just amongst friends — friends she thought would be receptive to suggestions that you and some of the other board members are not good Christians.
Cargill’s defenders blamed TFN and the news media in the Chronicle story. Here’s what McLeroy, whose willingness to put politics ahead of education cost him the chairmanship two years ago, had to say:
“She was just making a political distinction, not a religious distinction, and it’s much to do about nothing — except for the Texas Freedom Network and their friends who want to throw gasoline on the fire and try to ruin a fine lady.”
And Liberty Institute, the Texas affiliate for Focus on the Family, said Cargill was simply referencing:
“a label and category that the media makes regular use of themselves to describe certain State Board of Education members.”
Right, let’s blame the media and TFN for pointing to a video of Cargill’s comments in full and in context. Neither TFN nor the media told or forced Cargill to say what she did. (And we marvel at the fact that she and McLeroy fail to see just how offensive those comments really were.)
But since some appear to believe that Cargill’s comments have been taken out of context, here again are videos of her entire speech:
[youtube http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CxbMC_aevKg&w=500&h=314]
[youtube http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ajmXduFNgjo&w=500&h=314]
[youtube http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=08kNX6XqMNA&w=500&h=314]
[youtube http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WxEq7gjYME0&w=500&h=314]
Where is it written that Texas Freedom Network is a bastion of Conservative values and has the knowledge to tell who is a conservative leader. Not many in Texas feel that Craig is a strong conservative, especially Kel Seliger. He had to take away from Charlie Garza’s SBOE District to fortify the vote for Craig is his own district and this will possibly lose a seat on the SBOE for the strong conservatives. Personally, I would rather have Garza then Craig.
Barbara was just telling the truth. Those that don’t like what she said should tell her where she is wrong. I would like to hear that response!
************** John Cook Says:
July 20, 2011 at 1:43 pm
Barbara was just telling the truth. Those that don’t like what she said should tell her where she is wrong. I would like to hear that response!************
Look at the videos. The moment she starts moving her lips, she is wrong.
Garza is an idiot. An embarrassment to the El Paso area.
jduenes1749,
Okay, I have looked at the first two and have seen nothing that I feel is untruthfull on her part. Since you said her lips were moving and immediately was wrong, tell me what you disagree with in the first twenty minutes. If you can’t, I will just assume you another left wing hack!!!!!
jduenes1749,
Also Charlie Garza is a friend and has served in the military, retired from there and has since been in the school system. Very distinguished career in both areas. Why is that an embarresment to you? What have you done as a servant to the U.S. and to the school system, trying to help improve the minds of young Texans?
Hi John. While I agree that every American who stepped off the launch craft at Omaha Beach was a hero, it is also a well known fact of American history that setting foot on that beach was a nightmare for every soldier who did it. If this is not a nightmare, I do not know what else would qualify:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gZgKo46X8CI
Unfortunately, we got to see only the bold headlines on those lesson books she held up. I would like to have read the full texts to see what they said. I guess Babs Cargill and I part ways at this point:
1) She would like to teach an idealistic and sterilized version of American history that focuses only on happy things. Unfortunately, when you do that, you are not teaching American history in full. You are teaching propaganda that accentuates certain things that you think are positive and leaves out what Paul Harvey used to refer to as “The Rest of the Story.” The purpose of such messages is not to educate a young person in American history. It is motivated by a desire to instill a person with blind patriotism directed towards achieving a desired future result. That desired result is to instill young boys with the thought that going off to war one day in the future will be like going to your best friend’s birthday party. Steeped in heroic mythology, they will rush in droves to the recruiting station with no thought as to the possibility that they might get a head blown off in the first 0.5 seconds on the battlefield—that it will indeed be a nightmare. If we can get them there in enough numbers without letting them know the possible personal cost, then America may be saved. And besides, if the poor, dumb, bastard does get his head blown off in the first 0.5 seconds, he will be happy as a lark up to that critical moment when it happens and will never know what hit him. That is not education John. That is manipulation of kids to make them ready to give you something that you value—if need be one day. Manipulation is a form of deceit—and deceit is a form of lying.. It is the same kind of manipulation that the Nazi leadership practiced in the Hitler Youth movement, which was a course entitled “Getting You Ready for the Wehrmacht 101.”
2) I agree that the “NIghtmare” heading alone was bad and one-sided—but so is the Babs Cargill approach. Both are manipulative and deceitful. I and probably most of the people here at TFN Insider would like to teach American history in a full and truthful way. That means teaching all sides of it, both positive and negative. Yes, every soldier who hit Omaha Beach was a hero, but doing it was also a nightmare experience. I have known several people who have been to war, including my own father-in-law. I do not know a single one of them that saw their experience as a happy-go-lucky patriot festival like Babs does. They are sad and grave. They know that war is a nightmare because they have been there in the middle of it, and none of them like to talk about it. No soldier who has ever been to war in a combat situation waits happily for an opportunity to go to war again just for the sake of going. I do not know why, but I feel that a soldier who is fully aware of what war is all about will be a better soldier in his job.
She just needs to resign. What a disgrace.
Thank you, Charles. You said what needed to be said. War IS hell, not fun.
She’s among that group of funny-mental people who do not know what a scientific theory is.
She probably doesn’t know that Wikipedia is not a form of witchcraft, but its definition of a scientific theory is: A scientific theory is constructed to conform to available empirical data about such observations, and is put forth as a principle or body of principles for explaining a class of phenomena. In other words, a central concept in modern science and the scientific method is that all evidence must be EMPIRICAL, or empirically based, that is, dependent on evidence or consequences that are observable by the senses. That means, for non-thinkers, that Evolution is observable, thus it is real.
Yet, Cargill wants to thump her bible and teach students that a magical spirit being created all that exists in six days some six thousand years ago. Never mind that science says the universe is over four billion years old, but what’s a few billion years here or there?
I’m glad that I got my education when science trumped religion. As a member of the Union of Concerned Scientists, I bemoan the loss of science to religion in Texas.
In Cargill’s own words:
Part 2, +/- 7:00 minutes into the video, in response to so many negative comments: “I did have to disable the comments section on my computer”…
Atta girl, Babs… as an elected official, you sure don’t want to have to listen to opposing viewpoints!
Then at +/- 7:28: “I’m telling my boys ‘Don’t look at blogs.. it puts poison in your brain… just ignore, ignore, ignore’… we must be doing something right if so many people are becoming angry.”
That is just a stunningly arrogant thing to say.
After criticizing the rhetorical and grammatical skills of her commenters, BC repeatedly mispronounces the term “etcetera” as “ekcetera” (lordy, the quality of our conservative educators.. no wonder our children are in such trouble).
Later in the video she goes on to warn the reactionaries at the Eagle Forum about who is showing up to testify before the Board… you know… the really scary types: black people, latinos, muslims (muslims, for god’s sake!), sikhs (and here she carefully instructs us to pronounce the word as “sick”) people who want equal treatment for lesbians and gays (remember… Jesus said “move over; I get to throw the first stone!”), Palestinians (yikes!), people who want church and state to be separate (god forbid!), multiculturalists, and the godless League of Women Voters (doesn’t THAT just make you shudder!?)
—————-
“Toss your hats into the air! We’re obnoxious, we don’t cay-yur!”
-Austin Lounge Lizards
Ha, if she’s telling her kids to ignore “blogs”, I know what the first thing they’re going to check out first chance they get.