Dealing with leftist prejudice

By Steve Sexton
10:30 AM, 2/11/2003

Call it the office of disinformation: Several reporters interviewing members of the Patriot staff in recent weeks have reported that the UC Berkeley Media Relations office is spreading lies. While our Web site was down for renovations, reporters turned to the university for help in contacting us. They didn’t know how hostile the administration has been to conservatives on campus. Apparently, the office told reporters we are only an online publication.

Now admittedly it’s not the duty of those in the media relations office to transfer calls to the Patriot, but shouldn't we expect them to not lie to reporters? The administration knows we distribute magazines once a month. The head of the office has seen me distributing magazines on campus; we even spoke briefly. Other officials in the chancellor’s office have walked by our table, grabbed a copy, and marched back promising to “make sure the Chancellor sees this,” in a huffy tone. And we have seen officials grab stacks of the Patriot and scurry off to Sproul Hall.

A student in Poli Sci 161 raised his hand last week to try and define conservatism, in contrast to liberalism. Conservative ideology, he said, is anti-change, and “why would anyone want to be anti-change right now. I mean things are pretty bad for a lot of people now. They must be in the minority.” Another student added that conservatism is “short-sighted.” Meanwhile, liberalism was being defined as believing and fighting for equality.
I couldn’t believe what I was hearing. These people had no clue what they were talking about. They were political science students and they had no idea what roughly half of America believes politically.

Conservatives aren’t anti-change when it comes to economics. Presumably the student was referring to economic conditions in saying things are “so bad for so many people.” President Bush has cut taxes once and is trying to do it again. And conservatives certainly are not opposed to equality. To the contrary, the party of Abraham Lincoln has long been the standard-bearer of equal rights, it's just we’re losing a PR battle now.

A better definition would be to define liberals as wanting equality of outcomes. Conservatives want equality of opportunity and then leave it to individuals to make of their lives what they want.

How can so many students on this campus embrace the liberal agenda when they don’t even know what the other side has to say? I know what liberalism is all about. I know what conservatism is all about. So, I can confidently say I believe the conservative ideology to be the better than the liberal one. But if you don’t know both sides, how can you be so confident that you are right in your political allegiance?

No, conservatives aren’t opposed to equality; equality of opportunity anyway. No, conservatives aren’t anti-change when it comes to improving the economic conditions for Americans. And no, conservatives aren’t shortsighted. President Bush’s tax cut proposals will bring politically damaging deficits in the near term. It is in the long term that they will pay off. And no, conservatives aren’t in the minority, either. The last elections is proof of that.

I hadn’t watched CNN in a long time before I went on “CNN Saturday” to talk about the Patriot and the growing conservative movement here at Cal. I should have--because I may have seen a report like Bruce Morton’s the following day and it would have confirmed what I now know: Conservatives should stick to Fox News Channel and MSNBC, or at least expect an ambush when they appear on CNN.

Morton’s report is introduced by Wolf Blitzer as a look at “the polar opposites of President George W. Bush and Bill Clinton.” In truth, it was nothing more than a hit piece against our President, something one would expect to see on the editorial pages of the New York Times, but even the Times wouldn’t have tried to pass it off as news.

Morton begins: “A friend of mine here at CNN has a theory about the Bush administration. They're convinced that everything Bill Clinton ever did was wicked, bad and awful, and so they want to do the opposite. I thought he was joking at first, but now I'm not so sure.”

He continues: "I mean, Clinton wanted to save all that wilderness area in Alaska, and Mr. Bush wants to drill for oil there. Clinton fussed about clean air; this president wants to ease new restrictions on coal-burning power plants."

And then there's money. "Clinton, my friend noted, had surpluses. Obviously, the Bush administration thinks those are evil. Because what they want is deficits -- big ones, maybe the biggest ever."

In 2001 the government ran a $127 billion surplus, the fourth in a row. This year, the Congressional Budget Office expects a deficit of $199 billion, much larger than the deficit they forecast just five months ago. . .

Remember during those bad Clinton years, when they were forecasting surpluses for the next 10 years? Look how quickly the administration turned that around. . .

Clinton mostly favored negotiations, talk. This president, just about from the beginning, has seemed to favor force. War will make the deficit higher, of course. Nobody knows how much higher because nobody knows how long or short, how tough or easy the war will be. And war's real cost can't be measured in red ink, anyway. It's real cost is in people, the lives war changes, the lives it takes.

And that’s his report. Bruce, what about how Clinton lobbed cruise missiles at pharmaceutical plants in response to attacks on U.S. embassies, the World Trade Center and the USS Cole? Clinton ignored the huge threat terrorism posed to the U.S, didn’t respond to attacks and left Al Qaeda intact to strike again on Sept. 11. Bush has taken on the challenges presented to him. He has answered the call of history and as he recently said, “We will not deny, we will not ignore, we will not pass along our problems to other Congresses, to other presidents, and other generations.”

What about how President Bush has cut taxes once and is pushing though a second larger tax cut package? Bill Clinton raised taxes. What about how Clinton negotiated with North Korea? Look where that’s gotten us. Bush is vowing not to give in to blackmail.

Clinton had sex in the West Wing. President Bush holds prayer services there. In his first year, Clinton’s approval rating barely broke 50 percent after months in the thirties. President Bush’s hovered in the eighties for three months during his first year. (Of course 9-11 played a role in those high ratings, but they also are responsible for the negative economic indicators Morton cited in his report.)

UN weapons inspections fell apart during the Clinton era. President Bush was able to get them restarted. And now that Iraq is continuing down the path of noncompliance that began in the Clinton administration, Bush isn’t going to let it continue like his predecessor. He will act to disarm Iraq, liberate the Iraqi people and secure our safety.

These comparisons and others made by pundits in recent weeks make it clear who the better man is. That’s probably why Morton didn’t mention them. He was right though--Bush does probably think everything Clinton did is wicked, bad, and awful, and he’s probably right.

I won’t be going on CNN again. It’s Fox News from here on out.