Here is another excerpt from David Barton’s book “Jefferson Lies”. It explains the political jockeying that implicated Thomas Jefferson in the scandal.
In 1998 the journal Science released the results of a DNA investigation into whether Jefferson had fathered any children with his slave Sally Hemings, specifically her first child, Thomas, or her fifth child, Eston. In conjunction with its announcement, Pulitzer Prize– winning historian Professor Joseph Ellis wrote an accompanying article in the journal Nature announcing that the question was now settled – that DNA testing had conclusively proved that Thomas Jefferson had indeed fathered a Hemings child, thus scientifically affirming a two-centuries-old rumor. That 1998 announcement was actually relevant to events occurring at the time, for it came at the commencement of President Bill Clinton’s impeachment proceedings for lying under oath to a grand jury about his sexual activities with a young intern inside the Oval Office. News reports immediately pounced on the fortuitous DNA announcement, arguing that if a man as great as Thomas Jefferson had engaged in sexual trysts, then President Clinton
should not face inquiries about his sexual misbehavior. After all, such conduct had not diminished the stature of Jefferson, they argued, so it should not be allowed to weaken Clinton’s. Professor Ellis agreed, candidly admitting, “President William Jefferson Clinton also has a vested interest in this [DNA] revelation.” (Shortly before his bombshell announcement about Jefferson, Ellis had added his signature as a cosigner of a New York Times ad opposing the impeachment of Clinton. Henry Gee, a staff writer for Nature who also wrote a piece as part of the initial revelation, similarly acknowledged that the DNA report provided much-needed cover for President Clinton: The parallels between the story of Jefferson’s sexual indiscretions and the travails of the current President are close. Thomas Jefferson came close to impeachment – but the scandal did not affect his popularity and he won the 1804 Presidential election by a landslide. And if President William Jefferson Clinton has cause to curse the invention of DNA fingerprinting, the latest report shows that it has a long reach indeed – back to the birth of the United States.
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However, only eight weeks after the initial blockbuster DNA story was issued, it was pulled and rewritten, quietly and without fanfare, with the scientific researcher who had conducted the DNA test acknowledging that the test actually had not proven that Jefferson fathered any children with Hemings. It turned out that the results had been dramatically overstated: there were twenty-six Jefferson males living in the area, of whom ten might have been the father of a Hemings child, and Thomas was only one possibility. But the admission of the misportrayed DNA testing results did not make the same splash in the national headlines, for it aided no agenda. Doing justice to Jefferson’s reputation was not deemed in and of itself to be a worthy national consideration, so the retraction story was generally buried or ignored. Consider the damage done by this false and inflammatory reporting. Ask any citizen today whether it has been scientifically proven that Jefferson fathered illegitimate children with Hemings, and they will likely answer with a resounding “Yes!”
Later evidence would show it was probably Jefferson’s brother who fathered the children.
The publisher has been a writer/photographer for over thirty years. Specializing in nature and landscape photography, as well as studying native cultures.
His travels have taken him to most of the United States, as well as Australia, Belize, Egypt and the Canary Islands.
He has studied the Mayan culture of Central America as well as the aborigines of Australia. Photography has given him the opportunity to observe life in various parts of the world.
He has published several books about his adventures.
For more information, please consult his website,www.journeysthrulife.com.
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There is an extreme shortage of common sense in today’s world, When looking back in history, I soon discovered this has always been a problem, Benjamin Franklin once said, ”Of all the senses, common sense seems to be the one that is used the least.”
As simple as it may seem, many seem to be totally oblivious to it. Most if not all of the problems the world faces today could be solved if people would just sit back and think about what would seem to be the most obvious and simple solution to any issue. Often times people tend to over complicate the issues when an easy and simple solution would be obvious.