Talk:Earl Butz

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 * Butz took over the Department of Agriculture during the last period in American history that food prices climbed high enough to generate political heat. His legacy would be to make sure that never happened again. In 1972 Russia, suffering disastrous harvests, purchased 30 million tons of American grain. Butz had helped to arrange that sale in the hope of giving a boost to crop prices in order to bring restive farmers tempted to vote for George McGovern into the Republican fold

Is taken verbatim from page 51 of Pollan's book. It should either be quoted or paraphrased. —Preceding unsigned comment added by DivF (talk • contribs) 07:12, 25 September 2008 (UTC)

Removal of libelous material
Several paragraphs were removed, all unsourced libelous material was removed, and the source given for the Air Force One remarks is not sufficiently reliable. Please see: Biographies of living persons and Reliable sources.--DO11.10 00:51, 23 March 2007 (UTC)
 * Poor Earl. The one thing he'll be remembered for, and fear of liability ensures the quote won't appear even here.  Google his name and "loose shoes" if you want to know what it was alleged he said.  Asat 04:34, 28 March 2007 (UTC)
 * The problem here is not an issue of "liability", the problem is a lack of reliable sources for the inflammatory comments. The citation that was provided was essentially a blog, however the official policy is that Material found in self-published books, zines, websites or blogs should never be used, unless written or published by the subject. If the comments can be attributed to a reliable source they can certainly be returned to the article. Really, just think, would you want people to quote something YOU might have said (true or not) on Wikipedia without a good source to back it up? I certainly wouldn't.--DO11.10 22:05, 28 March 2007 (UTC)

he might be known for actual agricultural work, too
Butz is mentioned heavily in "the omnivore's dilemma", in a discussion of the radical shift in how agriculture subsidies and controls worked during his tenure in office, leading to a huge drop in corn prices since then.

loose mouth
This is sourced (time magazine) and notable for two reasons - first, such a statement by the U.S. Sec. of Ag., acting in his official capacity, is clearly worthy of interest, as shown by the attention given by major media like time

Second, those old enough to recall the Nixon presidency will know that their was a great deal of hypocrysiy about foul language - in the privacy of the oval office, nixon cursed like a sailor, but in his public persona, he was pure and chastized others who were note. The butz quote is part of this presidential history. (not that nixon was alone in his hypocrysy, but I think he was more aggresive)Cinnamon colbert 13:26, 22 June 2007 (UTC)

The issue with that section is there is no context/history/detail of the quote. In its current state that section is junk. Im going to remove it. If you can give it more context and fit it into the article properly please re-write it. But as it is its a BLP/POV issue Betacommand (talk • contribs • Bot) 14:09, 22 June 2007 (UTC)


 * Butz is famous more for his racist statements than for any policies he espoused in office. The context is already present in the article itself. I think the "no maka the rules" thing is germane, and well referenced. Uucp 14:20, 22 June 2007 (UTC)


 * There is a little context in the next section, but the section in question needs re-written, and expanded. As it is now is not appropriate for an encyclopedia. Instead of just throwing out that quote with only a shred of context, why not expand give the political and media response to it. and also make it NPOV. Betacommand (talk • contribs • Bot) 14:43, 22 June 2007 (UTC)

I have removed those versions from the history for BLP issues. While the section may be relevant, in its current version it is highly POV and borderline defamatory. Please consider heavily how to write it before it is reinserted. ^ demon [omg plz] 14:52, 22 June 2007 (UTC)


 * Woh. It was a quote from Time Magazine, with footnote, and you blew away the history? Uucp 14:53, 22 June 2007 (UTC)

The quote used "niggers," not "coloreds." I fixed this, while uncensoring pussy and shit. Is it not unprofessional to censor profanity? We need not cater specifically to children. Quote him verbatim. If we have an article on "nigger," there is no reason to censor it when it was used in a quote. The DASHbot auto-reverted my edits, calling them "unconstructive." Fixing a quote to be accurate and removing the unnecessary censorship is not unconstructive and it is not vandalism.

Primary sources http://www.dailyrotten.com/ point to coloreds, not that this makes the riposte any less disgusting, but that's nixon for you, he was hardly known for promoting love and equality on any level of government.--Cymbelmineer (talk) 23:16, 4 October 2010 (UTC)

I'm not sure where or how this should be included but there's a pretty direct reference to this quote in Frisky Dingo 2x03 it's slightly modified but no doubt it was inspired by this quote. Comment? — Preceding unsigned comment added by 208.54.38.240 (talk) 05:06, 15 August 2011 (UTC)

The direct quote now in the article appears to be correct. But I think part of the notability of the statement is the amount of exposure it got, and one report significant to me, at least, has been left out. I assume this is after the referenced and quoted article in Rolling Stone by John Dean; at the time of the scandal, Rolling Stone published a graphic consisting of a grid titled "What He Said And What They Said He Said", or something to that effect, and went on to list each of the sub-phrases in Butz' statement and what each of the other news outlets reported in their various bowdlerizations. I don't have access to Rolling Stone's "All Access" (presumably a part of their site behind a pay-wall) but I think it would be pertinent to this article to either reproduce the graphic here or at least reference it. I'm not doing so only because I choose not to create an edit that is not properly attributed, and such attribution may be possible with access to the "All Access" part of Rollingstone.com or to the original printed material. -Tzf (talk) 20:06, 17 January 2013 (UTC)


 * 1) There are no BLP issues any longer (he died).
 * 2) It was 'colored' in the original.
 * 3) The RS article is #223 (October 7, 1976) with Elton John on the cover, and the title of the Dean article Rituals of the Herd at the top (cover image here and here).
 * 4) If you want some context for Butz's comment, then recall that the Ford presidency was tainted by Ford's often having been seen as bumbling (see, e.g., LBJ quote 'can't walk and chew gum at the same time').  In the very week that Butz made his comment, Ford was in trouble for his own huge gaffe, this one of a political nature rather than a racist one, when he claimed in response to a question that Poland was not under the domination of the Soviet Union.  Any high school student of the time would have been yelled at by his Social Studies teacher if they had made a bonehead comment like that.  In any case, that's why Ford and not Butz was on the cover of Time magazine for the week in which Time reported on Butz's comment (10/18). I suspect that Ford was almost relieved (albeit disgusted, being the decent man that he was) about Butz's comment, as it drew some (but not all) of the fire away from himself, in what was one of the lousiest weeks of his presidency.
 * Mathglot (talk) 23:32, 27 July 2013 (UTC)

Earl "Rusty" Butz
It's variously mentioned that Earl Butz had the nickname "Rusty". If someone could dig out a good authoritative source on that, then maybe an incoming redirect of Earl "Rusty" Butz could be added. 31.18.248.254 (talk) 23:51, 2 October 2012 (UTC)

DoneDylPickle666 (talk) 05:22, 16 January 2019 (UTC)DylPickle666

Popular culture
"Earl Butz" is the name of the enormous pig in Jane Smiley's book "Moo". — Preceding unsigned comment added by 173.51.145.197 (talk) 04:47, 11 December 2014 (UTC)

Butz-Berry Debate
There is some confusion over WHEN the debate took place, '77 or '78. I am investigating and will correct if needed. brtom (talk) 16:26, 28 January 2023 (UTC)

Everything I'm seeing, with the exception of the Library of America chronology, points to November of 1977. So I have made the change.brtom (talk)