Full Text of the Excerpt

SEAN DEVEREUX:

When you issued your "cult of crackpots" statement, what kind of reaction did that get from the Citizens Council?

WILLIAM PATRICK MURPHY:

I was told—and I can't remember by whom now—but the report circled back that they were just absolutely enraged. They just saw purple and red and every other color when that sentence was written. And the sentence is a little out of character, really, for me. But by that time, you have to realize [Laughter] , I'd been going through this for a long time, and I had had it up to here (and let the record show that I put my hand up above my teeth). And I just felt that I had to… I was just so fed up and so frustrated and so angry and everything else that I just was determined to say at least one thing to these people to tell them what I thought of them, and that was the one sentence, I believe, in the whole period of time, in which I used language that might have been a little intemperate. What did I say exactly now? "I do not intend to tailor my teaching to satisfy any cult of crackpots." But I also coined the phrase "willful ignoramus," didn't I? I've always been proud of that phrase. You know, a lot of people are ignorant because they can't help themselves [Laughter] , but these people had just made up their minds they were going to stay ignorant. It was willful ignorance. That was the one sentence there where I really kind of let myself go.