"morally bankrupt"

[Fred Shapiro]

On Fri, 16 Apr 2004, Baker, John wrote:

>         Not to dump too badly on James Landau, but "morally bankrupt"
> not only predates the Vietnam War, it also was not restricted to
> discussions of the Vietnam War during the time of the war or afterwards.
> For example, President Nixon called the free speech conclusions of the
> commission on pornography morally bankrupt in 1970.

James Landau's knowledge of mathematics, Judaica, and many other fields is
so impressive that I find myself disappointed by his statements on
politics, which seem on quite a different level of knowledgeability.  His
assertion that the term _morally bankrupt_ is used exclusively about the
Vietnam War is so obviously wrong as to not need refutation, but for the
hell of it I looked at the 72 occurrences of the term on Nexis in March
and April 2004.  Exactly zero of these referred to Vietnam.

Fred


--------------------------------------------------------------------------
Fred R. Shapiro                             Editor
Associate Librarian for Collections and     YALE DICTIONARY OF QUOTATIONS
  Access and Lecturer in Legal Research     Yale University Press,
Yale Law School                             forthcoming
e-mail: fred.shapiro at yale.edu               http://quotationdictionary.com
--------------------------------------------------------------------------