Story grew legs on Internet

Charlie Brennan, Rocky Mountain News

Published March 4, 2006 at midnight

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Jay Bennish came to rapid notoriety after his infamous 21-minute, 40-second lecture excerpt was played Wednesday morning by radio talk show host Mike Rosen - but Rosen wasn't the first to wave a red flag about its content.

In a column originally posted on his Web site at 1 a.m. Feb. 22, George Mason University economics professor and syndicated columnist Walter E. Williams addressed the Overland High School teacher's message in a 600-word piece titled "Indoctrination of our Youth."

"Regardless of whether you're pro-Bush or anti-Bush, pro-American or anti-American, I'd like to know whether there's anyone who believes that the teacher's remarks were appropriate for any classroom setting, much less a high school geography class," Williams wrote. "It's clear the students aren't being taught geography."

In an interview Friday afternoon, Williams said he first learned about Bennish in the middle of last month in an e-mail from Jeff Allen, father of the Overland sophomore who recorded Bennish on an MP3 player.

Allen asked if Williams would like to receive a CD of that recording. Send it along, said Williams.

"I think he ought to be fired," Williams said of Bennish, in Friday's interview.

"I think any teacher who would use his class in that fashion should be fired," Williams said. "Particularly, to being saying this to young, impressionable kids who don't know theirs from a hole in the ground."

Williams, a 69-year-old educator who has appeared often on the Rush Limbaugh radio show, said it's because of teachers such as Bennish that "our kids can't locate the United States on a world map."

Williams said, "I cannot conceive of a test question in geography that would be addressed by Mr. Bennish's rants."

The parallels between the Bennish controversy and the outcry surrounding some writings and public commentary from University of Colorado professor Ward Churchill one year ago - their stories both raced to Fox News with equal speed - are numerous.

One similarity is that while Colorado became ground zero for both battles, their opening salvos were lobbed from far away.

The Churchill controversy was initially sparked by a 21-year-old student, Ian Mandel, writing in his campus newspaper about a scheduled visit by Churchill to his school in Clinton, N.Y., Hamilton College.

Soon, numerous Colorado news outlets were seemingly converting to all-Churchill content, all the time.

Similarly, Williams wrote about Bennish 10 days ago from his distant perch at a college in Fairfax, Va.

Williams said his column is syndicated to about 140 newspapers and Web sites, outlets as diverse as the Jewish World Review and The Daily News in Jacksonville, N.C.

David Lane, Bennish's attorney (and Churchill's, as well), was not surprised to learn Bennish was initially attacked from about 1,700 miles away, by Williams.

"This kid (Overland sophomore Sean Allen) has apparently shopped this tape all over the place and gotten no buzz from it" until recently, Lane said.

It's national news now. And a Google search Friday for "Jay Bennish" - hardly a household name outside his own household a week ago - yielded 584 results.

In fact, it had permeated some corners of the blogosphere even ahead of Rosen presenting Sean Allen's Bennish recording to his KOA radio listeners.

Blog offerings included this item on timowensby.com, Random Thoughts and Opinions, posted at 11:43 p.m. Monday night by Denver resident Jeffrey Bennish - who is Jay Bennish's brother:

"What kind of student covertly records his teacher after peppering him with questions from his father during the open discussion on current events section of class?" Jeffrey Bennish's post asks. "The same student that boasts of beating Jehovah's Witnesses over the head with Bibles on his MySpace site."

That drew a response at 6:31 p.m. Tuesday - the eve of Sean Allen's appearance on the Rosen show - from Sean Allen, himself. He wrote that Jeffrey Bennish was taking his efforts to be "a professional stand-up comedian" too seriously.

By Friday, the Bennish story had vaulted way beyond the jurisdiction of obscure Web sites to top of the agenda for such national-level pundits as the venerable Paul Harvey.

Brennanc@RockyMountainNews.com or 303-892-2742

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