The Not-Welcome Sign
By Howard Kurtz
Washington Post Staff Writer
Thursday, May 25, 2006; 10:51 AM
I'm a free-speech guy.
Just wanted to make that clear up front.
So I'm perturbed, if I can use that word, at some of these college protests
against high-profile commencement speakers.
I mean, if someone like John McCain comes to your school--even if you
strongly disagree with everything he stands for--why not listen to what
he has to say, instead of trying to block him from stepping foot on your
campus?
Sure, the students who do that, or wave signs, or heckle, or otherwise protest such appearances, are expressing their free-speech rights as well. But what message are they sending? We feel so strongly about our views that we simply refuse to listen to anyone else ?
There's an interesting debate flourishing over the issue, starting
with National Review Editor Rich Lowry :
"What a bargain: At a cost of a mere $100,000 or so, a northeastern
college can take your child and transform him into a delicate flower incapable
of handling opinions at odds with his own. It can close his mind and vacuum-seal
it against opposing views. And it can, as a bonus, perhaps make him rude
and incorrigible.
"These have been the benefits of liberal education on display
this commencement season, as graduating students have risen up against
the affront of having to listen to the U.S. secretary of State or a distinguished
war hero for a half-hour or so. Students complain that Condoleezza Rice
and Sen. John McCain don't represent them. But since when has it been
a requirement that speakers on campus be representative of--in the sense
of totally agreeing with--student views? If there were such a requirement,
few commencement addresses would ever be given by anyone to the right
of filmmaker Michael Moore.
"Students at the liberal New School in New York City circulated a
petition to have McCain disinvited as the commencement speaker. 'McCain
does not speak for me,' they declared. Well, of course not. No one would
ever mistake the (mostly) conservative senator from Arizona as a mouthpiece
for the flagrantly tattooed and pierced left-wingers who attend the Greenwich
Village college. But why would they only want to hear someone saying things
that they already thought and believed?. . .
"All the rhetoric about 'not speaking for me' and 'not in my name' indicates a certain self-obsession. At the New School it was in full flower. As McCain spoke about the lessons of his life, students yelled, 'It's not about you!' and 'It's about my life, not yours!' Apparently what they wanted to hear was: 'I'm here to tell you that every unexamined prejudice you hold is absolutely correct. You represent the summit of human wisdom, and in all the years you have left on this Earth, you will never learn anything important that you don't already know as a snotty 21-year-old.' "
The Wall Street Journal editorial page also disapproves:
"Rude college kids and left-wing professors are hardly a new story.
But the ugliness of the New School crowd toward Mr. McCain reveals the
peculiar rage that now animates so many on the political left. Dozens
of faculty and students turned their back on the Senator, others booed
and heckled, and a senior invited to speak threw out her prepared remarks
and mocked their invited guest as he sat nearby. Some 1,200 had signed
petitions asking that Mr. McCain be disinvited."
But author Jane Smiley so dislikes McCain that it sounds like she
believes he should be tarred and feathered:
"The appalled onlooker, such as myself, the sort of person (a voter)
that McCain wants to win over, has to stare in disbelief. From a purely
strategic point of view, McCain's assault upon the fortress of liberalism
that is the New School was an abject failure. He did not win over anyone,
and he defeated and humiliated himself. [Chief of staff] Mark Salter failed
him absolutely because it was Salter's job to understand, before the graduation
speech, that McCain was unwelcome as the representative of a failed administration
and a failed war, and that he is widely seen as someone who may once have
had character but for whom the term 'roll-away teeth' now applies.
"Instead of warning McCain that intelligence reports showed that the New School could be treacherous territory and required some tactical shifts, and possibly an orderly retreat, Salter let him march forth in ignorant expectation of victory. Afterward, showing himself to be a cur instead of a man, Salter whined and growled and tried to bite. His motive -- to save his own [butt] -- was evident.
"Of course, my real beef against John McCain is the same as my beef against all supporters of the Iraq War and the current administration. He has collaborated (enthusiastically) in decimating the treasury, breaking the army, wrecking the bureaucracy, silencing the media, gelding the opposition party, handing the public lands over to private interests to exploit as they please, dirtying the air and water, impoverishing the working class, damaging the schools, outsourcing the jobs, and laying waste to the public health, not to mention killing and maiming thousands upon thousands of Americans and Iraqis, destroying the Iraqi infrastructure, defying international law, and alienating formerly friendly people around the world. His crimes are legion. He should consider himself lucky to get away with mere humiliation."
Former Democratic senator Bob Kerrey , the New School president, defends
the place on the Huffington Post:
"I now speak in defense of the behavior of my students -- the minority
who protested and the majority who did not. On the surface, some of the
tactics of the protest were rude, noisy, and disrespectful. Less obvious,
however, was the self-restraint that prevented the protesters from behaving
in a fashion that would have shut down the commencement or made it impossible
for Senator McCain or me to continue. Though many in the audience -- including
Senator McCain and I -- were offended by the heckling, at no time were
we in danger of not being able to proceed."
That's his defense ? That being rude and disrespectful is okay because
at least they didn't throw tomatoes and run McCain off the campus?
The student who used her speech to challenge McCain, Jean Rohe , also
blogs about the experience:
"It's been noted in several columns that anti-McCain sentiment coming
from the left may actually help him to garner support from the conservatives
by giving him the opportunity to paint us as extremist liberals, so we
should all keep our mouths shut. I say we need some 'extremist liberals'
if we're ever going to get our democracy back. Others have said that he's
a moderate at heart and that we should let him continue pandering to the
religious right so he can get the vote. Once he gets into office he'll
show his true colors and be the centrist he always was.
"I don't buy that. People who truly care about human beings don't
vote for an unjust war, among other things, simply as a political maneuver.
Enough said. . . .
"Yes, McCain was undoubtedly shouted-out and heckled by people who
were not politely absorbing his words so as to consider them fully from
every angle. But what did he expect?"
I scarcely know what to say. She doesn't like the war. She doesn't believe McCain was sincere in supporting the war. She doesn't want him to be president. Therefore he's an unacceptable commencement speaker?
Denny Hastert and Nancy Pelosi finally agree on something:
"The constitutional clash pitting Congress against the executive
branch escalated Wednesday as the Republican and Democratic leaders of
the House demanded the immediate return of materials seized by federal
agents when they searched the office of a House member who is under investigation
in a corruption case," says the New York Times .
Do they really want to defend a congressman caught with $90,000 in his freezer? William Jefferson is their poster boy for fighting the feds?
Captain Ed isn't pleased:
"This can't be the same Congress that issues subpoenas for all sorts
of probes into the executive branch and the agencies it runs. Does Congress
really want to establish a precedent that neither branch has to answer
subpoenas if issued by the other, even if approved by a judge -- which
this particular subpoena was?. . .
"Congress already has enough problems with corruption and scandal
without adding even more arrogance to top it. If the leadership wants
to argue that their status as elected officials somehow gives them the
ability to disregard subpoenas and court orders, then the American people
may want to trade that leadership to ensure that Congress understands
that it operates under the same laws as the rest of us."
Iraq will be taking center stage again, says the Chicago Tribune :
"House Republican leaders, in a significant political gamble, are planning to hold a free-flowing debate over the Iraq war on the House floor in coming weeks, facing head-on what may be the most difficult issue to threaten pro-war incumbents in the fall election. . . .
"The decision to hold a public debate on an issue that has sent President Bush's approval ratings tumbling and put Democrats within striking distance of recapturing the House reflects the growing pressure facing Republicans from bad news about the war. GOP leaders hope the forum will give their endangered incumbents a chance to distance themselves from the war, argue that it is going better than most recognize, or both."
I don't get it. Aren't debates supposed to lead to something beyond
rhetoric?
I wrote yesterday about Patrick Healy's front-page NYT piece on the Clintons'
marriage , and now Arianna Huffington (whose own marriage to a Republican
congressman got its share of scrutiny) cries foul:
"It's not just that they devoted nearly 2,000 words and precious
front page real estate to gossip and innuendo about Bill and Hillary's
sex life (or lack thereof) . . . it's that the gossip and innuendo was
so . . . so, well, New York Times-y .
"So instead of coming right out and asking what they really want
to ask -- 'Are the Clintons Still Doing It?' -- we get all these silly
nudge, nudge . . . wink, wink hints, insinuations, and too-obvious-by-half
code words. . . .
"Then there was this can-you-find-the-secret-hidden-meaning quote
from an anonymous friend: '[Hillary] needs to be in her own separate orbit,
so if something explodes in his world, she will have at least some space
and distance to manage it.' Gee, what kind of thing could 'explode' for
Bill Clinton? Let's ask Dr. Freud. Or Ron Jeremy.
"The worst of it was when Healy pulled out his abacus to calculate the potential for couplings between the former (and potential) first couple: 'Since the start of 2005, the Clintons have been together about 14 days a month on average. . . . Last August, they saw each other at some point on 24 out of 31 days. Out of the last 73 weekends, they spent 51 together.' It's Page Six as math quiz! . . . The piece was the worst of both worlds: it was tabloid journalism without the kick."
The New Republic's Jonathan Chait , a self-described Bush hater, is
rubbing his hands together and chortling:
"It appears that the scales have fallen from David Frum's eyes. The
former Bush speechwriter and current National Review writer once had faith
in the basic decency and honesty of George W. Bush. But now the president
he once served so loyally, and whose honesty he once found above reproach,
has done something utterly uncharacteristic. He has presented his policies
in a misleading light.
"No! you say. This can't be true! But it is. Allow me to quote
Frum: 'Putting the [National] Guard on the border is a symbolic act. .
. . But I am afraid that in this case the symbolism is manipulative and
deceptive.'
"Deceptive? Bush? He must have the wrong guy. Just a couple of years
ago, Frum wrote: 'I've always thought it strange that so many on the left
have chosen to make an issue of President Bush's honesty. The president
is, if anything, almost excessively direct and self-endangeringly truthful.'
"It's funny. I remember when Bush insisted that he wanted to bring the parties together to pass a patients' bill of rights, even as he arm-twisted Republicans who favored such a bill into renouncing it. I remember when he insisted that lower-income workers reaped the biggest share of his tax cuts. I remember when he presented his stem cell position as a way to dramatically expand research opportunities. One could say that misleading rhetoric was the hallmark of Bush's political style. But if you said that two years ago, you were a rabid Bush-hater.
"Now the immigration debate, which has turned the right against
itself, has provoked a kind of right-wing glasnost. Former Bush loyalists
are discovering all sorts of unpleasant things about him, and each other."
Jonah Goldberg says the facts are now in and the media blew it big time
after Katrina:
"In all of Louisiana, not just New Orleans, the total dead from
Katrina was roughly 1,500. Blacks did not die disproportionately, nor
did the poor. The only group truly singled out in terms of mortality was
the elderly. . . . Blacks were, if anything, slightly underrepresented
among the dead given their share of the population.
"This barely captures how badly the press bungled Katrina coverage.
Keep in mind that the most horrifying tales of woe that captivated the
press and prompted news anchors to scream--quite literally--at federal
officials occurred within the safe zone around the Superdome where the
press was operating. Shame on local officials for fomenting fear and passing
along newly minted urban legends, but double shame on the press for recycling
this stuff uncritically. Members of the press had access to the Superdome.
Why not just run in and look for the bodies? Interview the rape victims?
Couldn't be bothered?"
There's considerable consternation at the Philadelphia Inquirer over
local businessman and PR guy Brian Tierney buying the paper, and the Philly
Daily News, from McClatchy:
"For much of his career, Brian P. Tierney was paid to challenge how
his clients were portrayed in the news media, including Philadelphia's
two major daily newspapers.
"On Tuesday, he stepped forward as the chief executive officer of those newspapers. And some journalists are worried whether he will be able to resist the temptation to try to shape news coverage, despite his emphatic promise not to do so.
" 'How does somebody who has spent his life making millions of dollars suppressing the news and stifling aggressive investigative coverage suddenly become a champion of it?' wondered Monica Yant Kinney, The Inquirer's New Jersey columnist, who has clashed with Tierney. 'How does this guy go from being our slayer to being our savior?'
"Tierney, a longtime Republican activist, for years ran a public-relations firm that employed what reporters viewed as hardball tactics in representing the Archdiocese of Philadelphia and other major local institutions that were the focus of critical news stories.
"But he said, over and over again, that, as the co-owner of The
Inquirer and the Philadelphia Daily News, he would respect the editorial
independence of the publisher, editors and reporters."
Let's hope so.
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