Digger's Doings

False Witness Analysis Part Three

On with the show...

     On page eight, Terry quotes a portion of Newman's e.mail in which he refers to Terry as a "former pro-life strategist" and "a man we all admired". Although Newman appears to be paying honor to Terry and his work, Terry looks right past what is written to the innuendo by saying that Newman's remarks were intended as a "slight".

     Calling Terry an "arrogant ass" is a slight. Suggesting he looks particularly 'well-fed' these days is a slight. Properly acknowledging that Terry contributed in a positive way to the pro-life activist movement is hardly a slight. Judaism encourages one to look upon even the words of an enemy in the best possible light. Granted, Terry hasn't gotten around to Judaism yet but it's still good advice.

     A key phrase on page eight is this: "his (Terry's) comeback after 15 years of being out of the pro-life movement" manages to demonstrate how to take a half-truth and phrase it to suit your own purposes. Although Terry would probably disagree, the fact is that he seriously curtailed his involvement with the 'rescue' movement in the early 1990s. In that regard, Newman is correct in saying Terry has been "out of the...movement". Although Newman would disagree, Terry has been involved in some forms of pro-life activism since the early 1990s for most of the time period from the early 1990s until today.

     A more honest phrase might have read "his 'comeback' after 15 years of being out of the pro-life rescue movement that he helped found". (I will be writing a separate piece later on after I have further researched the matter to demonstrate that, contrary to Terry's statements that "I and I alone" founded Operation Rescue", the movement would not have even gotten off the ground without the work of an awful lot of 'behind the scenes' people. Even the name "Operation Rescue" was not Terry's creation, but more on that later).

     Terry makes a statement that I would tend to agree with when he says he does not believe Newman wrote the Novemeber e.mail. I think someone else wrote it (probably Jeff White) and may have been sloppy in some of his copy by attributing certain things to Newman that actually occurred to him. This might explain some of the incongruencies that Terry skillfully points out and it may behoove Newman to come forward about it if, indeed, he did not write the text for the e,mail being dissected.

     I am not necessarily faulting Newman if he had someone else write the letter for him. He wouldn;t be the first person in the pro-life movement to use a ghost writer and won't be the last. However, his ghost writer was careless in some regards and Terry is rasing some legitimate questions about apparent contradictions in the letter.

     One example of this is on page ten where Terry points out that Newman cites two different times for creation of Operation Rescue in the e.mail and some of Newman's other writings. Terry, unlike Newman, is in a position to know when Operation Rescue came into being and who was involved at the beginning. However, as I will point out in a later post, Terry himself does not give an entirely accruate description of the events and people that brought about Operation Rescue.

     Truthfully though, Newman should have done his homework as to the origins of Operation Rescue. There are written histories out there that he could and should have consulted rather than making claims that can easily be refuted by the same written histories.

     On page eleven, Terry states that, for Newman "to assert that Mr. Foreman was the second leader of Operation Rescue is untrue". I have read the document over several times. At what point does Newman make this assertion?  

     As to Rev. Foreman being the "second leader of Operation Rescue"; well, that's not entirely untrue. Foreman did serve as the leader of Operation Rescue when Terry was in jail in Atlanta, albeit for a short period tnat ended with his 'dismissal' from the position and Terry's release from jail and resumption of his duties as leader of Operation Rescue.

     Starting at page eleven, Terry goes into a lengthy digression on statements made by Newman outside of the November e.mail. He rasies some legitimate timeline questions as to when Newman started to use the name "Operation Rescue" (as opposed to Operation Rescue West) and when he assumed leadership of Operation Rescue itself. Many of these questions might be better examined by looking at where Operation Rescue may have ended, where Operation Rescue National began and the degree to which the two organizations are distinct from one another. To paraphrase a line from Jaws, 'we're going to need a bigger blog' to sort all this out.

Stay tuned...