Historical Trash Talk Essay, Research Paper

One of the most destructive and deceptive propaganda tricks of the modern left is the calculated misrepresentation of American history for the purpose of bolstering the liberal poltical agenda, discrediting hallowed American institutions and heroes, and legitimizing ideas and behavior that have long been condemned. Only two days befor this fall’s elections, the liberal media resorted to yet another campaign that made use of exactly this kind of falsehood.

The target of the propaganda campaign this time was Thomas Jefferson, third Presiden of the United States, author of the Declaration of Independence, and on of the most revered of the nations Founding Fathers. The claim was tha modern science has now proven that Jefferson was in fact the ather of an illegitimate son by a female slave of mixed race.

The story, of course, is hardly new. It was first put forward during Jefferson’s own lifetime, when his political enemises circulated it in a vain effor to discredit him. It has been resurrected periodicallyd uring the last 200 years by one historian or another, although the most respected scholars of Jefferson’s life and times have tended not to accept the story’s truth. What helped make the sorty come to life yet again- and this time to generate headlines- was that now it purports to enjoy the support of modern science.

The occassion for the headlines was the publication in the Novermeber 5th issue of “NATURE”, an internationally respect British scientific journal, of a study that report the discovery of the same genetic markers in the male descendant of the female slave, a woman named Sally Hemins, and the male descendants of the Jefferson line. The argumet is that these marker – Y chromosomes known to occur only in the male descendants of the Jefferson line- could not be present in the descendants of the female slave unless Jefferson himself had been the father of one of her children.

That finding, as fascinatin as it is to students of modern genetic sciens, is hardle the stuff of headline. Nevertheless, for the next several day the media regurgitated the same story repeatedly, accompanying it with the opinion articles by various pundits and “authorities.” U.S. News & World Report devoted the cover story of its November 9th issue to the Jefferson-Hemming connection, and both the New York Times and the Washington Post delivered theior own official editiorials on the story. Obviously, to those who understand the working of the establisment media, there was a lot more to the Jefferson story than the resouldtion of a 200-year-old historical controversy.