MIT Professors Make Top 100 (Worst) List

What do Professors Noam Chomsky and Nancy Hopkins have in common with talk show host Jerry Springer, professional basketball player Latrell Sprewell, rap music star Eminem, radio schlock jock Howard Stern, pop music star Michael Jackson, and druggie personality Courtney Love? They are all listed in Bernard Goldberg's book "100 People Who Are Screwing Up America" [HarperCollins Publishers, 2005].

According to the book by the former CBS senior correspondent for 48 Hours , Prof. Chomsky (who ranked 11th ) ". . . in many ways, is the epitome of what, in a sane world, would be a complete contradiction in terms: the anti-American American intellectual." Stating that the reader might not have heard of Prof. Chomsky ". . . unless, of course, you hang out on college campuses in places like Berkeley or Palo Alto or Cambridge, Massachusetts, where Chomsky is as big as Elvis was in Las Vegas," Goldberg acknowledges that Prof. Chomsky "made his name long ago in academic circles for his work on linguistics at MIT." He then continues, "But he achieved true superstar status not for that, but his relentless, vicious attacks on all things American: American society, American values, American behavior in the world."

As for Prof. Hopkins, who came in 36th (one place ahead of comedian Al Franken), she was included because she "famously stalked out of a conference in early 2005 because she couldn't endure the indignity of Harvard President Lawrence Summers floating an idea she didn't like." After castigating the Harvard faculty for subsequently passing a resolution stating their lack of "confidence in the leadership of Lawrence H. Summers," Goldberg goes on to write, "But we shouldn't be too harsh on Harvard's faculty in general or on professor Hopkins in particular. They have an excuse: politically correct idiocy is a way of life on our most elite college campuses."

And you probably thought it was referred to as "liberal" media bias.

By the way, documentary filmmaker Michael Moore is ranked #1.

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