Robert Watson Ph.D. Lynn University

August 30, 2009


Robert Watson Ph.D.
Lynn University
American Studies Program
Freiburge Residence Hall
3601 N. Military Trail
Boca Raton, Florida 33431

RE: Some things are owed to the record, particularly when it concerns Dr. Johnson.

Doctor Watson,

I am glad you run the American Studies Program.

As the Florida guardian of Johnson minutiae I feel duty bound to leap to his defense when he is misquoted or quoted out of context. [Just saying that I can defend Dr. Johnson causes me, a la Chris Matthews, to have a thrill run up my leg to the point of tumescence] Since your field of expertise does not extend East of Nova Scotia the flogging will be as gentle as I can make it. Still it gives me pause that you did not know about him. I wonder if you think, as does the Board of New York State Regents, that the 5 Tribes influenced James Madison.

You begin your column in this morning’s Sun-Sentinel thus:

“The 18th century English writer Samuel Johnson noted that,
“Patriotism is the last refuge of scoundrels.”

Saying that Samuel Johnson was an “18th century English writer” is like saying Mozart was an “18th century Austrian musician”. Perhaps, since American Studies is your field, you would say that “Benjamin Franklin was an 18th century tinkerer” or that “Abraham Lincoln was a 19th century politician” or that “Mark Twain was a 19th century sailor” or that “Ronald Reagan was a 20th century actor”.

In any event Patriots and Patriotism have an entirely different meaning from what you wrote.

Patriots were a fringe political group. They would most resemble those Americans who think that the government engineered 9/11 or that the Bush family euchred 3/4ths of Congress to declare war on Iraq so as to secure a gas transmission line across Kafiristan. Birdbrains with loud mouths who had a national platform would be one way to describe them. Rosie O’Donnell would have been one of their better spokesmen regardless of the century.

The great Dr. J said that, at the end, the sound of their own voices was all they needed to hear to convince them of their argument.

Thus the argument over something like Global Warming is predicated on “It’s a hot summer because summers are hot”. Correlation is not to be confused with causation. I could get into Logic and Rhetoric and stuff like “Post hoc ergo…” but that would be assuming that you knew something of Greece, of Rome, of the Trivium, inter alia.

Stir not the wrath of Johnson followers.




Kevin Smith