Turley debate report

[mspart]

Hi all, 

I find this instructive.  Jonathan Turley had a debate at Colgate with Michael Klarman, the Charles Warren Professor of Legal History at Harvard Law School.   The topic was on “Is There a Constitutional Crisis? How Would We Know?”      Klarman took the affirmative view and Turley the opposing view.     Turley gave a report on the debate here:   https://jonathanturley.org/2025/09/23/the-turley-klarman-debate-a-video-and-a-response/

The  first statement is really interesting.   It goes like this:

Professor Klarman stated at the outset that he would present a condensed version of a talk he had given at Harvard. As a result, he did not focus on the specific question presented beyond saying that what constitutes a “constitutional crisis” means different things to different people. Instead, he presented a list of grievances against Trump, the MAGA movement, the Supreme Court, Congress, and the media as evidence of the rise of fascism and authoritarianism in America.

So Klarman did not even address the actual topic of the debate but went to other places.   Not much of a debate if you can't stay on topic from the very get go.   

Klarman also said, “I am going to be extremely factual. Everything I say I can cite check chapter and verse for. You are right to beware of misinformation today but you are not going to get any of it from me.”   Not only is this a quote from the article linked above, it is a direct quote of Klarmans.   

Interestingly, one of the first things he said was factually wrong.   Turley, because of the topic of debate, did not get into all of the issues Klarman brought up because they were not on topic.   But the below is one thing he did address at the time and he has a list of others he did not address at the time but addressed in this article.   However Turley says that: 

I did address a couple of factual assertions during the debate. For example, Professor Klarman later claimed "that he had spoken completely factually and challenged the audience with “what did I say that is not true?”"    And made the following statement:

“[Trump pardoned] violent insurrectionists including several who were directly responsible for the death of police officers.”

As we all know, no police officers died as a result of Jan 6.   Only one person died as a result of Jan 6 and that was Ashli Babbit who was shot by Capitol Police.   Officers did die of natural causes after Jan 6 and of suicide later on.   So did protesters.  Turley discussed this fairly thoroughly, saying:

As I pointed out, only one person died during the January 6 riot, a protester named Ashli Babbitt. The claims that police officers died that day are false, though often repeated by politicians and pundits. The New York Times helped spread the false claim that Capitol Police Officer Brian Sicknick died as a result of being hit with a fire extinguisher. Sicknick suffered two strokes and died of natural causes the day after the riot. As a past correction states, “The medical examiner found Sicknick died of natural causes which means ‘a disease alone causes death. If death is hastened by an injury, the manner of death is not considered natural.’ Four other officers committed suicide days to months later.” Other officers died months later from such causes as suicide, but there is no direct causal link to the riot.

So Klarman decided to air his quarrels rather than debate the topic.   Which I find is a tactic used by the left mostly and some on the right.   They make a statement off topic and pound on it and then change the topic to something else which is what Klarman did as you can see if you read the article.   A video of the debate is included in the article so you can see it and not trust what Turely is saying.   

I think this experience is very emblematic of people having a debate not knowing the rules of a debate which is to stay on topic.   This guy is a chair in the Harvard law school and can't even stay on topic.  How did he ever get his law degree is a wonder and how he is at Harvard, the premier law school in the country is another wonder.   Or maybe not. 

mspart