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Stuart Taylor with a scathing denunciation of campus left wing radicals.
In the matter of the Holocaust-denying, terrorism-sponsoring, nuke-seeking, wipe-Israel-off-the-map-threatening, we-got-no-gays-in-Iran-spouting Mahmoud Ahmadinejad and his September 24 showcase speech at Columbia University: It would be easier to stomach the free-speech grandstanding of Lee Bollinger, Columbia’s president and Ahmadinejad’s histrionically hostile host, and others of Bollinger’s ilk if they were a bit less selective in their devotion to the First Amendment. When a student group recently canceled an event featuring an anti-illegal-immigration speaker for fear of a hecklers’ veto by leftist students, for example, Bollinger had nothing to say.
Looking to the other coast, it would be easier to admire the indignation of certain academics and journalists at the temporarily shabby treatment of crusading liberal constitutional scholar Erwin Chemerinsky by the University of California (Irvine) if those same people had also spoken out against the far more widespread campus censorship of less liberal figures. …
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Bollinger has never made a serious effort to use such episodes to reverse the censorial drift of Columbia’s campus politics. Other examples range from the suspension last fall (later revoked) of the men’s hockey club for posting recruiting flyers that said “Stop being a pussy” — a less-than-tasteful play on Columbia’s athletic “Lions” — to the ideological litmus tests used by Columbia’s Teachers College to evaluate student performance. Among these tests: “respect for diversity and commitment to social justice.” That terminology is a standing invitation for professors to penalize any student who criticizes racial preferences, openly votes Republican, or defends Larry Summers.
This is also the same Bollinger who joined a vote of the university’s Senate in 2005 to continue a 36-year ban of ROTC programs from Columbia because of the military’s discrimination (which I, too, deplore) against service members who admit to being gay. Did anyone tell him that Ahmadinejad’s government executes people who admit to being gay?
It took a unanimous Supreme Court to teach Bollinger — a prominent First Amendment scholar — that his argument (in an amicus brief [PDF] that he joined) in a major 2006 case was so far-fetched as to be an embarrassment. The argument, also endorsed by hundreds of other legal academics, was that universities might well have a First Amendment right to keep collecting millions of federal tax dollars despite a law cutting off those that do not give military recruiters the same access to students as they give other potential employers. …
Yale thinks money is more important than their principles. James Taranto with details.
James Kirchick in Contentions says Gordon Brown is in hard line opposition to Mugabe.
British Prime Minister Gordon Brown has set African leaders astir with his ultimatum concerning an upcoming European Union/African Union conference in Lisbon, Portugal. Brown has laid down a simple condition for his attendance at the December conference: that Zimbabwean dictator Robert Mugabe not attend. “We should not sit down at the same table as President Mugabe,†Brown told the Labour Party conference last week. …
The Captain has more good news from a friend.
The government of Nicolas Sarkozy intends to keep pressure on Iran to abandon their nuclear program, and wants to see the rest of the world follow suit. Foreign Minister Bernard Kouchner told a European broadcaster that Western credibility required the pursuit of tougher sanctions, as the UN continued to dither:
French Foreign Minister Bernard Kouchner said on Tuesday the West must continue to work on sanctions if it is to be taken seriously by Iran, even as talks continue to resolve a stand-off over Tehran’s nuclear ambitions. …
And the Captain also posts on a memo from Hillary’s first attempt at socialized medicine.
Defenders of the S-CHIP expansion refute the accusations of its critics that it amounts to a Trojan horse for nationalized health care. However, The Politico notes that a 1993 memo from Hillary Clinton’s health-care task force proposed using children as a mechanism in order to take control of health-care delivery for all Americans. The revelation gives the White House new momentum for its expected veto:
Back in 1993, according to an internal White House staff memo, then-first lady Hillary Rodham Clinton’s staff saw federal coverage of children as a “precursor†to universal coverage.
In a section of the memo titled “Kids First,†Clinton’s staff laid out backup plans in the event the universal coverage idea failed.
And one of the key options was creating a state-run health plan for children who didn’t qualify for Medicaid but were uninsured. …
Dick Morris says the Bill and Hill we see on FOX are the real thing.
Chris Wallace brings out the real Bill and Hillary each time he interviews one of them.
For those who have ever visited Clintonland, it’s sometimes hard to recognize the slickly-scripted, post-White House media personalities of the Clintons: the affable, smiling Hillary seen on the campaign trial or the laid back, take-it-as-it-comes Bill who periodically surfaces for softball interviews.
But every once in a while, there’s a rare moment of clarity. That happened last year when Wallace interviewed the former president. At the end of the interview, Bill lost it. Suddenly the veneer was off, exposing the enraged, snarling, lunging Bill accusing Wallace of “do[ing] his nice little right wing hit job” when he forced Clinton to address his inability to capture or kill bin Laden.
Not a pretty sight. …
Thomas Sowell on Columbia, Duke, and the media.
Michael Barone notes the differences between the GM strike in 1970 and last week’s strike.
… Reuther hoped that UAW contracts (in 1970) would set a pattern for the economy and lead America toward a social democratic state. The 1970 contract seemed to be doing that: The number of workers covered by cost of living adjustments increased from 30 million to 57 million by the end of 1971. But that only fueled inflation, which led to massive job losses in the auto industry in the recessions of 1979-83. In the 1980s, foreign companies began building auto plants in the United States, almost none of them organized by the UAW. As the Wall Street Journal concluded, “Toyota, not GM or the UAW, now sets the pattern for auto industry labor costs in the U.S. economy.â€
It turns out that market competition punishes those firms whose costs are out of line with others. It also produces better value for consumers, as today’s cars are far superior in quality to the clunkers of 1970. And it can make things better for workers, as well. The reason the UAW demanded 30-and-out in 1970 was that workers hated their assembly-line jobs. Newer manufacturing techniques, pioneered by Japanese firms, give workers more autonomy and responsibility — and more job satisfaction. The business model of 1970 is history. But most of us are better off today.
Jeff Jacoby on art scams.
Behold two public displays: One is an immature stunt, the other a work of art. Can you tell which is which?
Display No. 1: In an empty room in Boston’s South End, track lights go on and off at five-second intervals. The lights illuminate nothing except the bare walls and floor. This is “Work 227: The Lights Going On and Off,” the brainstorm of a Scotsman named Martin Creed, who has explained it in these words: “It’s like, if I can’t decide whether to have the lights on or off then I have them both on and off and I feel better about it.”
Display No. 2: An MIT student walks into Logan International Airport wearing a sweatshirt adorned with a plastic circuit board, on which a handful of glowing green lights arranged in a star are harmlessly wired to a 9-volt battery. On the back of the sweatshirt is scrawled “Socket To Me” and “COURSE VI.” The student is electrical engineering major Star Anna Simpson, and the outfit, she explains, is an art project meant to attract attention at an MIT career fair.
OK, so perhaps you already know that Creed’s flashing lights won the $30,000 Turner Prize, …
The Economist agrees ethanol’s a scam.
Carpe Diem says African countries lead the world in red tape.
Rich Lowry sees common sense developing in the climate debate.
… If the United States had participated in Kyoto and it had been fully implemented, according to economist Bjorn Lomborg in his new book, “Cool It,” it would have cost the developed world about $9 trillion to lower the global temperature by about .3 degrees Fahrenheit by 2100. That would have put off predicted warming by the end of the century by about five years. …
Damn Interesting has the story of oil drillers who drilled a hole in a lake in Louisiana and watched the water drain out.