Grade This! - March 28, 2006
The latest news wrap-up: Authors, bloggers, and Justices and their respective stupid statements.
By Brian Beutler
Tuesday March 28, 2006
Nothing Says Affirmative Action Like White Empowerment
In the annals of progressivism this week comes the story of a new puzzling phenomenon: the admission of men to college via affirmative action. If it is indeed a trend, then it’s based on the diminishing percentage of male applicants to college in general making them, technically, an underrepresented minority. But it seems to neglect a fundamental tenet of the idea behind affirmative action—that taking into account one’s background in college admissions is largely to compensate for past discrimination and systematic economic oppression. Unless of course I’m completely wrong, in which case here’s a list of potential applicant groups that might benefit from a policy like this – and might make college a more interesting place for everyone: Swiss immigrants, former KGB, really really hot girls at UC Berkeley, and senile octogenarians.
Swiss Immigrants: F (they never show up!)
Senile Octogenarians: Q! Wait, where am I?
Affirmative action for white men as the counterintuitive next-step in progressive politics: F
And Then He Hung the Defendant Himself, Drank a Shot of Straight Whiskey, and Strangled a Cow to Death With His Bare Hands
Although in the past he’s surely ducked questions (or aided and abetted colleagues in the ducking of questions) that might indicate having "pre-judged" a case that will come before the Supreme Court, Antonin Scalia sounded off for Newsweek on the treatment of detainees at the Guantanamo Bay detention center. It may have been more of a peddling of the man’s philosophical wares, though.
First, as a show of his conservative leanings, he pointed out the need to follow a centuries-old tradition: "War is war, and it has never been the case that when you captured a combatant you have to give them a jury trial in your civil courts." But then he betrayed the Constitutional originalism he holds so dearly by, well, by puking all over it: "If he was captured by my army on a battlefield, that is where he belongs. I had a son on that battlefield and they were shooting at my son and I’m not about to give this man who was captured in a war a full jury trial. I mean it’s crazy." Unless, again, I’m wrong and have overlooked the "Shooting at Michael Scalia" exception to that eighth amendment thingy.
Scalia: D
Guantanamo Bay : F
Betraying your moral turpitude by shooting off at the mouth to a bunch of European skeptics about the acceptability of indefinite detention and torture as a policy standard: A, for honesty
 Usually You Need To Work Here a Few Years Before The Federal Indictment
Among the more odious portions of the immigration bill passed by the House of Representatives in December (you know, the one that led to over 500,000 people protesting in the streets of L.A.) is the language that makes housing, transporting, or hiding an illegal alien a felony. According to the text of H.R. 4437 as passed by the House, anyone who knowingly "encourages, directs, or induces a person to reside in or remain in the United States" who is an illegal immigrant could receive up to five years in prison. That must come as a shock to President Bush, who would likely sign the bill if it came to his desk (after all, he’s never vetoed a single bill, breaking records for sign-anything Presidents), considering "encouraging to reside" probably applies to two of his own former staff appointments. Bush’s first nominee to replace Tom Ridge as Secretary of Homeland Security, Bernie Kerik, withdrew his nomination after revealing he hired an illegal alien as a nanny. In addition, Linda Chavez, former nominee for Bush’s Secretary of Labor, also bowed out after she was caught paying undocumented workers and letting them live in her home. Whether or not you agree with Kerik and Chavez’s acts of compassionate conservatism, under to the pending House Bill, both of them would have been eligible for serious jail time before they even started their first day at the White House. And that would be a new record for Bush, too.
H.R. 4437: F
Media Attention to the weekend protests: D
Documented irony: B+
Submitted by August J. Pollak, Campus Progress
I Don’t Really Think He Should Kill Himself, I’m Just Stealing a Cool Line
The biggest media news of the week surrounds a blogger named Ben Domenech, founder of the young conservative mega-blog Red State, who, after being co-opted by the Washington Post to bring balance to (or write conservative propaganda for) their website, was found to have written articles for his college paper and the National Review that looked suspiciously plagiarized. His response was basically, "I AM NOT A PLAGIARIST!!!*" (*even in the face of overwhelming evidence to the contrary). It included: "My critics have also accused me of plagiarism in multiple movie reviews for the college paper. I once caught an editor at the paper inserting a line from The New Yorker (which I read) into my copy and protested. When that editor was promoted, I resigned."Well, reporters, those are all verifiable claims, and they suggest that other articles in the same paper might well be fraudulent. Go to! In the meantime, I have composed my very own reflection – from Domenech’s point of view – on the whole sordid mess:
To be, or not to be (honest)? That is the question. Whether ‘tis nobler in the mind to suffer the slings and arrows of outrageous fortune (in the conservative blogosphere) or to take arms against a sea of troubles (and America-hating liberals). And by opposing end them (and my career).
All my words. No really. I swear.
Red State: D
Plagiaristic conservatives: F
William Shakespeare, to whom I am no way indebted: A
Wonkette Who? You’d Think Someone Would Write a Story About Her or Something
The former Wonkette has some ideas about college-women libertines, but I’m not sure we should be listening. (Have you read Dog Days? I’m guessing not, since only about 4000 people have, but if you do, you’ll find out that she has fairly low expectations of ambitious young women when it comes to their sex lives.) She says, basically, that the girls we see on raunchy, worthless, totally awesome programs like Girls Gone Wild are neither chaste to begin with, nor really doing anything all that surprising, and that their behavior is an outgrowth, parallel to the other avenues now open to them in our women’s-lib society — perhaps even a necessary effect of that same liberation. So, gentlemen, if you heed this advice, remember: If you fancy her, tell her that, by lowering her standards to get it on with you, she’s doing nothing worse than, say, going to law school, and that she’s actually advancing the continued cause of progressive feminism for generations of young women to come.
Wonkette: B
Dog Days: F
College women behaving badly: B- (according to Ana Marie Cox anyhow)
Got an item you’ve graded and want to submit it for the next wrap-up? Send your submissions to cpwebmaster@campusprogress.org.
Brian Beutler graduated from UC Berkeley in 2004 and has interned at The Washington Monthly and the Brookings Institution. He writes for the Washington City Paper.
Illustration: August J. Pollak
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brian
— brian - Mar 30, 03:51 PM - #