LETTERS: Al Gore: the Perfect Candidate in 2008
Letter-writer Nicholas Smith has launched the Gore ’08 campaign, saying that the former Vice-President would win with a “Nixonian Strategy.” Many of Nixon’s closest acquaintances would tell Gore, “I knew Richard Nixon. Richard Nixon was a friend of mine, and you sir are no Richard Nixon.” Nixon had what Gore lacks: class and dignity. Nixon lost to Kennedy by only 100,000 votes in the 1960 election, but Dick didn’t go running to the courts. Eisenhower urged him to contest the results, and the numbers certainly suggested such a maneuver, but Nixon admitted defeat with class and dignity. Unsurprisingly, the Sore-Loserman Democrats will gripe, “But Gore really did win the election.” Constitutionally speaking, Gore lost, so get over it.
Smith goes on to criticize the intelligence of the president, and then mocks the 51% of Americans who voted for him. “Since the US people apparently don’t care about the intellect of their president, I can understand why Bush is in office.” Instead of getting Gore to embark on another failed campaign, Smith and his fellow Democrats should check their Liberal elitism at the door. Criticizing the president’s or the peoples’ intellects won’t garner your party any votes. Its as big of a turn off as Gore’s forced make-out session with his wife.
Smith, with his superior intellectual wisdom, continues to dismiss Bush’s aptitude by writing, “…a President should not have to rely on advisors to tell him what’s going on…” What do you call James Carville and George Stephanopoulos? To Smith, Clinton’s advisers are no indication of the former president’s supposed ineptitude, while Bush is dumb for having some of his own.
FRONT PAGE: City May Remove 7 Police Positions
The Berkeley City Council may eliminate seven of the city’s police officers and reduce overtime salaries in the department. Council members blame the absence of measures J,L, M, tax-raising measure which Berkeley residents voted against last Tuesday.
The Daily Cal failed to report alternative reforms proposed by groups such as The Berkeley Budget Watch. This independent local government watchdog has called upon the city to re-evaluate its priorities, instead of recklessly funding a cornucopia of programs by gutting Berkeley taxpayers. The group cites that, despite the number of people leaving the city each year, Berkeley continues to add positions to the city workforce. The city has added 237 positions since 1980, while the population has dropped by 18,000. This expanding bureaucracy constitutes 75 percent of general fund expenditures. Budget Watch also proposes that the city should compel its workers to give back more of their salary increases. Raising taxes would not have solved the problem, and it is important that the city and its residents listen to Budget Watch.
FRONT PAGE: Local Youths Rally for Minority Enrollment
BAMN, the valiant crusaders for affirmative action, held a rally to protest the drop in minority enrollment. They employed students from Oakland Technical High School, Far West High School, and Edna Brewer Middle School to help with their whine-fest. Getting into college is becoming more complicated theses days. Not only does a student have to maintain a good GPA, have high SAT scores and get involved in extracurricular activities, but they also have to protest the school they hope to get into.
BAMN’s message: If you want to get into college, don’t excel. Just skip class to join a protest. If BAMN really wants to make a difference, they should encourage those kids they are manipulating to do well in school, rather then exploit their naïveté. Theses kids shouldn’t be told that they are victims, for it only reinforces their underachievement. Excelling gets you into Cal, not complaining.
Vice Chancellor for student affairs Genaro Padilla called Proposition 209, the measure which banned affirmative action in California, racist. Does he and BAMN know that Prop 209 is identical to the Civil Rights Act of 1964?
FRONT PAGE: UC to Test Out New SAT Exam
George Blumenthal, head of the Academic Senate hopes that the new SAT “will boost enrollment of underrepresented minorities.” Yes, the SATs are racist. Everyone recalls George Wallace’s famous oration, “Analogies now, analogies tomorrow, analogies forever!” Let’s stop insulting minorities by assuming they can’t read and do geometry.
COLUMN: Find Your Inner Red
Writer Andro Hsu claims, “…the GOP is a Frankenstein’s monster, a motley assemblage of fundamentally incompatible ideologies.” Here is what’s really incompatible: Supporting universal human rights, but criticizing a leader for deposing a major human rights violator; supporting the death of the unborn, but rejecting the execution of violent criminals; wanting big government to provide for every aspect of one’s life, but opposing a government that looks to protects its citizens; opposing racism unless it is used as an advantage in college admissions or job opportunities; supporting civil liberties except for those under the second amendment…
Right, the GOP is full of contradictions, but the Democrats are as consistent as John Kerry. If the Republican Party is a Frankenstein’s monster, then 51 percent of Americans last week triumphantly shouted, “It’s Alive! Its Alive!”
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