4 - The Michigan Daily - Tuesday, October 4, 2005 OPINION t]e W 4bgttn ttilg JASON Z. PESICK Editor in Chief SUHAEL MOMIN SAM SINGER Editorial Page Editors ALISON Go Managing Editor EDITED AND MANAGED BY STUDENTS AT THE UNIVERSITY OF MICHIGAN SINCE 1890 420 MAYNARD STREET ANN ARBOR, MI 48109 tothedaily@michigandaily.com NOTABLE QUOTABLE 4 I like Harriet Miers." - Sen. Harry Reid (D-Nev.) in a written statement following President Bush's nomination of Harriet Miers to the U.S. Supreme Court, as reported yesterday by the Los Angeles Times. I .P tU11% COLIN DALY THE MCHIGAN DALX I. I Why DeLay will get off SAM SINGER VSAM's CUB can't help but worry that last week's indict- ment of U.S. Rep. Tom DeLay (R-Texas), his subsequent (and tem- porary) surrender of power as House Majority Leader and the general surge of excitement that flushed through the ranks of the Democratic Party may all amount to the largest letdown the party has swal- lowed since Sen. John Kerry (D-Mass.) tried to windsurf. I only say this because when removed from its broader political context, the criminal case against Tom DeLay is, quite literally, without a foundation. I'd warn the Democrats, but they're busy running victory laps. The party's public rela- tions machine pounced on the news, billing the indictment as the latest in a string of scan- dals slowly eating away at the integrity of the Republican Party. To hear a Democratic opera- tive tell it, DeLay's will be the political tumble that exposes the "culture of corruption" that's governed our ruling party for decades, the col- lision that derails President Bush's domestic agenda, the scandal that rockets Democrats into the midterm elections. "Their party has run out of both legitimacy and intellectual steam," Democratic Congressional Campaign Commit- tee Chairman and Rep. Rahm Emanuel (D-Ill.) told The New York Times. By burning him in political effigy - painting him as a walking, breathing illustration of the Republican Party's ethical impurity - Demo- crats are building a bombshell around the deposed majority leader, making the fallout from a poten- tial acquittal that much more damaging. By rais- ing the stakes, Democrats allow the outcome of a weak-willed legal attack to vindicate not only DeLay, but also the special interest-riddled fund- raising template he's adopted for his party. DeLay and two of his associates were indicted by a Texas grand jury last week for conspiracy in an illicit campaign finance scheme, charged with funneling illegal contributions toward the cam- paigns of a handful of Texas legislative candidates. According to the prosecution, DeLay's political action committee, Texans for a Republican Major- ity, upon receiving $155,000 worth of corporate contributions, sent a similar sum of money to the Republican National States Election Committee. The RNSEC then dispersed yet another similar sum amongst a roster of Republican lawmakers seeking office in the state legislature. Texas elec- tion code prohibits corporations from using soft money to finance state political campaigns. Aus- tin-area district attorney Ronnie Earl, who is lead- ing the investigation, claims DeLay conspired to circumvent those statutes in order to manufacture a Republican majority in the Texas legislature. The prosecution claims - correctly, I may add - that DeLay pressured the newly composed legislature into redrawing federal congressional districts to favor Republican candidates. The redistricting proved more lucrative than even DeLay had anticipated, supplementing an already tremendous House majority with five fresh Texas Republicans - all, I should add, deeply indebted to the former majority leader. If I didn't have a conscience, I'd applaud the guy for his artfulness; this was, afterall, the closest thing to a coup this country has seen in recent memory. A truly seasoned double-dealer, DeLay's savvy has made investigating him a hellish process. Put simply, at no point during his elaborate filter- ing scheme did the majority leader do anything remotely illegal. Follow the money trail yourself: A cluster of corporations make a lawful contri- bution to DeLay's political action committee. The PAC, again in perfectly permissible fashion, passes a similar figure along to a Republican fundraising organization that proceeds - with proper authority - to dole out above-board, "hard money" donations to individual candidates. By the time the money reached a campaign coffer it was no longer a soft, corporate contribution, it had taken the form of a new and perfectly legal medium. Money, as Ronnie Earl will soon learn, is fungible - once it enters a bank account it becomes exchangeable, its history erased. That of course isn't the case when there exists evidence that it was once used toward an illicit end, say, for trafficking drugs. But what distinguishes a well- crafted campaign finance scheme from the illegal laundering of money - what DeLay has most recently been indicted for - is that by definition, the latter must spin off of a prior crime. Here's where the conspiracy charge comes in. Unable to point to a broken law or breached regulation, Earl rests his case on DeLay's inten- tions. But again, DeLay's intent was to channel the money legally. That may make him sleazy, but under the current campaign finance statutes, he's no criminal. At best, Earl can document DeLay's intention to sidestep the law, not violate it. The DeLay prosecution, if read correctly, is more an indictment of our political fundraising system than it is of the former majority leader. By focusing on the player in lieu of the game, Earl is falling into the same, self-defeating trap as his Democratic counterparts in Congress. The prob- lem is not that through a complex web of prox- ies a notable politician was able to buy himself a stronger majority in Congress; the problem is that he was able to do it legally. Singer can be reached at singers@umich.edu. LETTER TO THE EDITOR On hate crimes: an open letter to the University To THE DAILY: In response to recent media reports of a harass- ment incident between members of our student community as well as the many unreported or unpublicized hate incidents that occur on our campus, we, the undersigned, feel it necessary to reiterate and renew our ongoing commitment to diversity, tolerance and justice. As members of an academic community com- mitted to the pursuit of knowledge and truth, our diversity is what makes us strong. Thus, the space we share must be safe and accommodating for everyone. An injury to one community member because of race, ethnicity, gender or gender iden- tity, sexual orientation, religious or political belief, nationality, or any other factor of his or her indi- viduality is an injury to us all. Failure to swiftly respond to such an injury demeans the values we as a community hold and trivializes the commu- nity's commitment to these values. As such, we stand in solidarity with others across campus who have already condemned the alleged incidents of hate that occurred against students because of their non-majority identity. United by our values, we ask that the University: 1) Stand behind its public statement strongly condemning acts of hate on campus. 2) Pursue the maximum sanction against the perpetrators of hate crimes, including expulsion. 3) Challenge and enable faculty, staff, students, graduate student instructors and other members of the campus community to proactively educate on the impact of discrimination and importance of our shared values of respect, tolerance and diversity. 4) Institute direct programs to educate stu- dents, faculty and staff on the prevention and identification of hate crimes and resources available to victims. 5) Bolster existing resources such as the Office of Multi-Ethnic Student Affairs and the Office of Lesbian Gay Bisexual and Transgender Affairs. 6) Support the efforts, findings and recom- mendations of the undergraduate and graduate student task force, currently known as Asian- Pacific Islander Americans Change, recently created to address hate incidents on campus. 7) Develop and implement a mechanism to track incidents of this type for use in assessment of the aforementioned initiatives. 8) Further refine the process for handling hate- motivated harassment, such as following through on the unfinished work of the 2004 Campus Safe- ty and Security Advisory Committee. 9) Create a climate safe for victims of hate- motivated harassment to file complaints and seek meaningful redress. We also encourage community members to stand against hate-motivated harassment through individual action, although we understand the limitations of such actions without the full sup- port of the University in implementing the above measures. We realize that there is much controversy and debate surrounding the recent hate incident. Yet student and faculty outcry sheds light on the fre- quency with which these acts occur and go unre- ported. We hope that the University will not miss this opportunity to institutionalize measures to protect members of the University community and create a more tolerant campus climate. Finally, we wish to express our support for the victims of hate incidents and dedicate these efforts to them. Sharon Heijin Lee Rackham The letter writer is writing on behalf of American Culture Graduate Students, Graduate Employees' Organization, Philippine Study Group Student Association, Public Health Students of African Descent, Society of Minority Engineers & Scientists - Graduate Students, Students of Color in Public Policy and Students of Color of Rackham. 0 6 VIEWPOINT Conservatives are not victims BY JARED GOLDBERG Dear Campus Conservatives: We need to chat. I've read over and over about Conservative Coming Out Day. Forget about offending the lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgender community for a second. Whether that's what you think you did is irrelevant. I have another beef with you: false victimization. Don't get me wrong, I think you're a great group. Your opinions, though I disagree with nearly all of them, are yours and no one should ever tell you that your beliefs are bad. However, and I mean no offense, you're delusional if you think you're being persecuted. Certainly not in the same way point to a liberal conspiracy to shut down all con- servative thought on campus? Hardly. I ask you this: From what departments are these oppressors of free speech coming? More often than not, I'll bet, they come from departments whose academ- ic goals may include the analysis of governments and politicians, some of whom may or may not be conservative. A sociology professor who studies the social impact of government programs is not necessarily going to view President Bush's cuts to social programs as a good thing. A history profes- sor who looks beyond ruling elites to study past events from a broader perspective is not going to view policies that benefit only those with money and power favorably. This is not a campus thing; that after the 1960s, victims received sympathy. Sympathy meant more people joining a cause and more legislation could be passed that would be beneficial to the victim. Thus, when certain states start legalizing gay marriage, suddenly "traditional" marriage is under attack. Or when the American Civil Liberties Union petitions the government to remove nativity scenes from pub- lic spaces, suddenly Christmas and Christians are under attack. Now they're doing the same thing to conservatives on campus, portraying you as victims under "attack." You're not. If you believe that the largest demographic (Christian conservatives) is also the most oppressed one (as wonderful scholars like Pat Robertson have Editorial Board Members: Amy Anspach, Reggie Brown, Amanda Burns, John Davis, Whitney Dibo, Sara Eber, Jesse Forester, Mara Gay, Jared Goldberg, Eric Jackson, Ashwin Jagannathan, Theresa Kennelly, Will Kerridge, I