Crikey! More ideological abuse of history.

History News Network's News About Historians has this post:

Back to the Australian scandals, for a moment. You may recall that this past winter KEITH WINDSCHUTTLE startled the scholarly world in Australia with the charge that liberal historians had grossly inflated the number of aborigines killed by white settlers. One of those he attacked was LYNDALL RYAN, who had cited the diary of Robert Knotwood for the claim that between 1803 and 1808 Australians had slain a hundred aborigines. Windschuttle pointed out that the diary only records four deaths, not a hundred. Ryan's reaction?

Lyndall Ryan: I certainly agree that the Knopwood diaries say that, but I also had another reference referring to a report by John Oxley who was a surveyor who'd been sent down to Tasmania in 1809. He said too many Aborigines were being killed.

Reporter: Okay, but how did you extrapolate from his words saying "too many Aborigines had been killed," to "about 100 lost their lives"? Is that just made up?

Ryan: Well, I think by the way in which Oxley wrote that he seemed to think there had been a great loss of life from the Aborigines.

Reporter: So, in a sense, is it fair enough for [Windschuttle] to say that you did make up figures? You're telling me you made an estimated guess.

Ryan: Historians are always making up figures.

Or as Homer Simpson put it: "People are always making up statistics - 60% of most Americans know that." But, seriously, given the blatantly political dimension of these scandals, I think the next time historians gin up some statement about presidential sex scandals or military actions, we ought to wonder how much their political agenda is affecting their scholarship.