4A - The Michigan Daily - Thursday, September 25, 2003 OP/ED ale £tkum Thzwi 420 MAYNARD STREET ANN ARBOR, MI 48109 letters@michigandaily.com EDITED AND MANAGED BY STUDENTS AT THE UNIVERSITY OF MICHIGAN SINCE 1890 LouIE MEIZLISH Editor in Chief AUBREY HENRETTY ZAC PESKOWITZ Editorial Page Editors Unless otherwise noted, unsigned editorials reflect the opinion of the majority of the Daily's editorial board. All other articles, letters and cartoons do not necessarily reflect the opinion of The Michigan Daily. NOTABLE QUOTABLE The entire population of the active force of the Marine Corps and the reserve force of the Marine Corps, and the Army and the National Guard and Reserves will be looked at." - Marine Corps Gen. Peter Pace, vice chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff Wednesday, discussing the need for more troops in Iraq, as reported by CNN. STEVE COTNER AND JOEL HOARD OPERATION PUSSYCAT "And also I'm against heavy assault weapons, and also to close the loophole, and " - all those things." Listen, Political Arnold. I am from the future. I have been sent by Future Gray Davis to terminate you. UNA w" r i , 'Alt ..r s fir. I 0 But... "I'm the Party Pooper!" "Boys have a penis?" "Hasta la vista? ... ... Baby?" Voters! Future Gray Davis is urging you to vote "NO" on the recall! Or else Political Arnold will be terminated! Gen. Wesley Clark has greener grass LAUREN STRAYER IN THE AciVEl VOICE '11 admit it. Until last week, I was shamelessly detached from the race for the Democratic pres- idential nomination. I had little enthusiasm for any of the campaign punditry and even less interest in deciding which of the nine candi- dates would get my vote. Sure, I read a few articles here and there, and dutifully listened to NPR's 10-part series on all the presidential candidates-including Bush-but I was largely and unapologetically apathetic. My excuse? Retired Gen. Wesley Clark. I spent most of the summer romanticiz- ing the lefty former NATO supreme allied commander and the strength of any campaign he might run. I proudly wore my "Draft Clark" button and studied his impressive resume. His military career as a four-star general, his Rhodes Scholarship and his ties to the Clinton administration had me ready to write his inauguration speech. I was ready to graduate early, move to Iowa and join his campaign - but he wasn't running. Like many Democrats depressed by the lackluster slate of presidential candidates, I was afraid President Bush might be unstop- pable. Hoping to avoid the disillusion and disappointment I felt after the 2000 elections, I perversely took comfort in my apathy and in Clark's hesitancy to run. I thought that if I didn't invest myself in any one of the declared candidates and kept my faith in the good general, I'd be guiltless if Bush won a second term. I'd be able to say: "I was for Clark but he was too decent to run. It's not my fault your candidate couldn't beat Bush." I only realized the ugliness of this anticipato- ry deflection when Clark finally announced his candidacy last week. Initially, I was thrilled that Clark had joined the race for the Democratic presidential nomi- nation, but soon thereafter I found myself slip- ping into my previous state of apathy. I was struck by my hypocrisy - how could I ignore the race now that my favorite candidate was running when I had based my previous indiffer- ence on his absence? My fear of another Demo- cratic loss to Bush was leading me to join that huge percentage of illogical Americans who do not exercise their right to vote, but still com- plain when the nation isn't running as they see fit. I was willing to forgo political debate and discussion because I believed the influence of the current administration might be greater than the power of elections. Somehow I forgot that even Bush has to answer to the voters. And it's those same voters who have an exciting alterna- tive in Clark. Before Clark became an official candi- date, political pundits wondered if he were a classic case of the greener grass being on the other side. Would his ideal collection of qualities fall apart under the heavy scrutiny of the campaign trail? I'm betting they will not. Clark exemplifies an unparalleled com- bination of social conscience, patriotism and expertise. He easily outshines his fellow can- didates - including Bush. In this time of relative international and political instability, Clark's military experience gives him advantages that none of his fellow candidates can claim. No matter how often Sen. John Kerry (D-Mass.) begins a sentence with "When I returned from Vietnam," Clark's 34 years of military service will always surpass Kerry's feeble attempt to seem the military- minded Democrat. Similarly, former Vermont Gov. Howard Dean's attempt to be the most liberal of all the candidates without raising the typical alarmist labels falls short in the face of Clark's easy social progressivism. It's hard to say a four-star general is a morally corrupt bleeding heart. Even Bush's military acumen is questionable when compared to Clark's - the former proves his might with a superficial Navy jet landing, the latter with his resume. While Clark's detractors point out that he has little Washington experience and that he has begun his campaign too late, all is not lost. I imagine that Clark's NATO experience gave him a good taste of the political wrangling common in Washington. Moreover, aren't Americans always complaining about career politicians? As for the late-starting campaign, the Draft Clark camp has been up and running for several months and Clark has some name recognition from his NATO work and his more recent commentary on the recent Iraq War. Plus, another Arkansas Democrat didn't declare his candidacy until even later in 1991 and still won the presidency. All in all, I'm not apathetic and it's because Clark actually has greener grass. 0 Strayer can be reached at lstrayer@umich.edu. LETTERS TO THE EDITOR Hanink is off-base, meetings, lounges open to everyone To THE DAILY: I think it is interesting that the Daily printed Jim Trout's letter ('Double standards' favoring minorities unfair to majority, 09/23/03), regarding Johanna Hanink's column ('Members-only' diver- sity, 09/22/03), as his comments about his visit to the University with his son dangerously intro- duces, if not perpetuates, the idea that the African-American lounges are restricted to blacks only. Though (hopefully) all of the upper- classmen of the University know that Trout's son didn't know what the bloody hell he was talking about when he made that glaring, obvi- ously uneducated mistake in telling that to his dad, I can still imagine some encouragable freshman with a snot bubble coming out of his nose reading the response and jumping to that ridiculous conclusion that there would actually be a lounge in a University reserved exclusively for one ethnicity. Almost more dangerous was the error that Hanink makes in the column itself. She speaks of the "minorities only" meeting that took place last fall term in the wake of the Daily boycott, but she was very off-base with her factual information. Had Hanink even attempt- ed to attend the meeting herself, she would have learned not only was it not restricted to minorities, but that she would have been in good company with other white representa- tives of the Daily! She cites an e-mail as advertising it as "minorities only," though I and no one else I have spoken to received an e-mail with that specific wording, and Hanink's journalistic background should allow her to know better than to anonymously cite any e-mails as reference points. I doubt this letter will make it in the paper, but, not for lack of trying, some very important facts needed to be cleared up in this mess of crass assumptions. DUSTIN J. SEIBERT LSA senior Wagner's argument flawed, Israel a Jewish theocracy that deprives Palestinians of rights democracy in the Middle East. There cannot be democracy without equal rights for all who live here, Arab as well as Jew." Referring to Israel's 36 year occupation of 3.6 million Palestinians, Burg further stated, "Traveling on the fast highway that skirts barely a half-mile west of the Palestinian roadblocks, it's hard to comprehend the humiliating experi- ence of the despised Arab who must creep for hours along the pocked, blockaded roads assigned to him. One road for the occupier, one road for the occupied." Of the 5 million Palestinians under Israeli control, only 30 percent have the right to vote. Of that minority, not a single indigenous, non- Jewish Palestinian enjoys full benefits or equali- ty under the law. This "democracy" certainly should not be lauded as Wagner suggests. - Rather, a growing number of academics, schol- ars, and South African anti-apartheid heroes have correctly characterized this as apartheid, and a plausible course of action then would be divestment. HASSAN ABRAHAM LSA junior Vice Chair, Students Allied for Freedom and Equality Word snob bashes fellow word snob's use of fascist' in battle of literary proportions To THE DAILY: I can't express how happy I am see to that some at the Daily are very picky about the meanings of the words they use (People who use words they don't know are (not) ironic fascists, 09/23/03). It's been a major gripe of mine for many years. Unfortunately Aubrey Henretty could not quite divorce the political implications of words from what they actually mean. She regrets that the "War on Iraq" became the "War in Iraq" in the first days of the conflict. Perhaps the preposition changed because now the war had moved into Iraq. "In," in this case, is more descriptive. Though I'm sure Henretty would have preferred "War Against Iraq," as would I, but the words are correct, and "on" is such an awkward phasing. She provides many examples of how not to use the word "fascist," but unfortunately hers falls short as well. "...there's a real fascist push- ing unconstitutional legislation through Con- gress." Not to defend Attorney General John Ashcroft, or get into a monologue about which elements of 1930s fascism define the word, but there are enough people in this world to whom weekend, (DPS arrests suspect in knife incident, 09/24/03). I am glad to see that the Ann Arbor Police Department, along with the Department of Public Safety are stepping up to the plate. I personally find that the home- less people are extremely threatening. Whether they try to be or not, I would prefer to be left alone, rather than be accost- ed on the street on my way to class. It really surprises me when I go there, to see the amount of homeless people that freely hang around the campus. I think that the homeless people would not feel so threatened by the students if they just did not talk to them. I don't see a need for comments to be thrown around on the street. I often fear for my safety when I am around these people, and as a student here at the University, I should not have to feel that way. I am not trying to make any generalizations about homeless people, I am just very leery of their presence here on campus. It is always unfortunate that something less than satisfactory has to occur for some action to be taken. Maybe now, everyone will realize that there is a large problem on this campus and some- thing has to be done about it. There has to be some way that the University communi- ty can live simultaneously with homeless people and the situation is safe and secure for both sides. LESLIE RoTT Rackham First-come,first-serve voucher system at Michigan Stadium would make for a lively crowd To THE DAILY: From what was described in Monday's analysis of Saturday's football game against Oregon, a first-come first-serve voucher system for student seating sounds much more conducive for a lively crowd than our current system based on credits earned. Why should drunken sorority seniors be ushered to the front row when they show up a half hour late (if they both- er to show up at all)? A credit system is perfect for course selection, but should have no bearing on where you sit during football games. The people who care about the team deserve good seats. The current system is also flawed because it isolates incoming freshmen who don't know anyone to sign up for tickets TO THE DAILY: In his letter (Divesting from Israel contrary to U.S. policies supporting democracy in Middle East, :I fnfr ~ i~ he .fl r t iime ~m s ct onfltedi. -nt a~na sacred ne s.:T1 I