THE ROBERT W. WHITAKER ARCHIVE

Bob Novak made a remark on "Crossfire" that seemed to contradict one of the liberal historical myths. Instantly Bill Press and the liberal guest went into a Greek chorus in which they recited -- and I do mean RECITED -- the required liberal myths. America fought World War II, one recited, because of Hitler's Hate. The other liberal took up the tale instantly, reciting how the Civil War was fought against slavery.

Novak could have mentioned that the US fought Hitler because Hitler declared war on the United States. He could have mentioned that Stalin represented Hate, too, and he was our Great Ally and Hero. He could have mentioned that Lincoln made it very clear that the war was NOT about slavery.

But we all know Novak could not do any of that, because these are Official Liberal Facts. All conservatives are required to accept them or be convicted as naziswhowanttokillsixmillionjews.

It is true that Bob Novak is himself Jewish. But being a Jew provides not the slightest protection against being condemned by liberals as anaziwhowantstokillsixmillionsjews. Richard Herrnstein, who co-wrote "The Bell Curve," was a Jew, but he is permanently condemned as anaziwhowantstokillsixmillionjews.

When I was on Capitol Hill, I was talking to a black school official in Ohio who opposed busing. He sounded very tired. He told me that white liberals had condemned him as a Klan sympathizer. I sort of chuckled, and he said, "It was funny to me too. At first. But I found out that these nuts MEAN it!"

He knew he would never get another promotion for the rest of his career in education. He would be lucky to keep his job.

Just a little while back, anyone who questioned the Official Liberal Fact that ten percent of all men were homosexuals was in DEEP trouble. That figure was arrived at by Dr. Kinsey, himself a bisexual, in a study which said that any man who had ever had a homosexual experience was homosexual. He also included PRISONERS in his study! So a teenager who had been raped in prison was classed in the Kinsey Study as a homosexual!

At that time, everybody had to repeat Kinsey's ten-percent-of-all-men-are-homosexual "fact" as biblical truth. By now I doubt that one in twenty of the readers of this column even remembers this. No respectable conservative disputed this "fact" at the time. No respectable conservative has ever reminded anyone of this "fact" since it disappeared, and no respectable conservative ever will.

A study finally killed that liberal "fact." It found that about 1.4% of men were classed as "homosexual."

So liberals keep on making up "facts" as they go along. I've killed a few liberal "facts" myself. In their day, those "facts" were recited in the media thousands of times daily, and every reader of this column saw them. But I am willing to bet no one remembers them.

The best known liberal "fact" that I killed was during the Carter Administration, when the first major effort was under way to declare homosexual households to be "family units." New types of families had to be accepted, it was said, because ONLY SEVEN PERCENT OF AMERICANS WERE PART OF A "TRADITIONAL FAMILY!"

I got the Congressional Research Service to chase down the origin of this strange assertion. They traced it to a Labor Department finding that the stereotype of a traditional family was of 1) a husband working, 2) a wife not working, and 3) the family had exactly one son and one daughter. This became the "traditional family" that had now declined to a mere seven percent of the American population.

It was like magic. I put that finding in a speech for my boss, Congressman John Ashbrook, and it appeared in the Congressional Record. Like magic, that "seven percent traditional family" statement simply DISAPPEARED from the media! No one ever mentioned it again! Certainly no respectable conservative will ever mention it again, to remind us of how liberals make up their "facts."

But if I had not chased that down and challenged it, liberals would still be saying that only seven percent of American belong to "a traditional family," and respectable conservatives would still be agreeing with it.