When Barbara Solow of the Independent (for those not in the Triangle, it is the local leftist weekly) interviewed me a couple of weeks ago for her story on conservative activists in college and the Pope Center for Higher Education Policy, she asked me what I would say to those who say that it’s all part of an orchestrated campaign by outside conservative groups such as ours.
I answered, “That’s a rather conspiratorial way of looking at it,” and said that, like the NAACP and the Anti-Defamation League, the Pope Center exists in part as a resource for a group of students who feel embattled on campus (earlier I had mentioned our role in providing education, conducting research and policy studies, and writing news and opinion articles). By the same token, I said, you could accuse the NAACP and the Anti-Defamation League of conspiring, too, but that would be irresponsible and viewing things through a conspiratorial lens.
Well, guess which direction Solow chose to take? (Apart from not quoting me on that.)
Hint:
Apropos of the cover art, I joked in an email (dated March 16) with a leftist friend of mine after the interview that we might be portrayed as having “fangs, horns or a pointed tail.”
