[Egregious Philbin]

The ALA has taken political stands against the Bush Administration, re pornography on library computers and the Patriot Act.

FYI - i'm playing devil's advocate here. Perhaps they take these stances because they are national issues, not international ones? Hentoff would probably see your two examples of librarians standing up for free speech (nationally), not as "political stands."

Also, voting against something doesn't mean support for its opposite - the librarians didn't vote FOR the Castro regime.

Finally, I know a few librarians and they characterize the Council as out of touch, so maybe it's just the more radical, politically-involved librarians that dominate this Council?

[LauraJean]

I know more then a few librarians. ALA is more to the left of an average librarian, but not by much. Out of the 250 people who work at my library, I can assume it was me and the guys in technology who voted for Bush. When the Patriot Act started I could see how excited the higher level staff were. They could hardly wait to pit themselves against the FBI. When the Iraqi war started I don't even want to get into all the conversations I heard against the war.

By the way the best way to make them angry is to picture them with dressed in a dowdy dress, hair in a bun, and sensible shoes. For some reason that really gets their panties in a bunch.

[LanPB01]

The council is dominated by the most out of touch from reality fringe of America's librarians. One of the council members (I can't remember his name) is the head of some Communist organization in New York.

I had a chance to read some responses from a few ALA board idiots the last time they refused the support the Cuban librarians. In one of them, they actually said they didn't support Robert Kent and his organization that's working to free the Cuban librarians because they received funding from "right wing" organizations.