4
4A - Wednesday, October 29, 2008
The Michigan Daily - michigandaily.com
Edited and managed by students at
the University of Michigan since 1890.
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Ann Arbor, MI 48109
tothedaily@umich.edu
ANDREW GROSSMAN
EDITOR IN CHIEF
GARY GRACA
EDITORIAL PAGE EDITOR
GABE NELSON
MANAGING EDITOR
Unsigned editorials reflect the official position of the Daily's editorial board. All other signed articles
and illustrations represent solely the views of their authors.
FCOMTHE I'L'Y
A-necessary leader
Barack Obama offers ideals, judgment America needs
"There are thousands of voters ... who realize only too well the danger
of electing a candidate who seeks to thrill with his oratory, to bring
a message of hope and cheer, without making specific promises or
pointing to the way out of the labyrinth."
T hose were the words printed in an editorial on this page
on Oct. 30, 1932. A week before perhaps the most signifi-
cant election in our nation's history, the editors of this
newspaper had yet to make up their minds about a decision that,
in retrospect, seems laughably obvious: Franklin D. Roosevelt or
Herbert Hoover?
as'" . . TABLE 4 .TA LE
Alaska deserves better than to
have someone with seven convictions,
seven felony convictions."
- Anchorage Mayor Mark Begich, who is running against Sen. Ted Stevens, commenting on his opponent's
defense of his continued re-election bid, as reported yesterday by The New York Timos.
ROSE JAFFE E-MAIL ROSE AT ROSEJAFF@UMICH.EDJ-,
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Resisting the temptation
4
Y
Our hesitation was understandable. The
nation was buried in an immense financial
crisis. The world was an unsafe place: A
man named Adolf Hitler was beginning to
cast a dark cloud over Germany.
The challenger to incumbent President
Hoover spoke with eager, fearless posi-
tivity about all this nation could be. But
it sounded too good to believe. What did
this one-term governor of New York really
know about managing a country in crisis?
Shouldn't we instead choose the man who
has experience - the incumbent president
who, even if he made mistakes, at least had
the benefit of learning from them?
Seventy-six years later, we return to a
similar question.
Today we're told that Barack Obama
is too young, too inexperienced,
too idealistic and too naive to be
president. We're told he'll be in way over
his head, that he won't be able to manage
the crises that will inevitably erierge and
that he will make the United States vul-
nerable and weak. Some of this rings true
- Obama is young and his record is hardly
distinguished. Nevertheless, he is exactly
what this nation needs today, the same
thing it needed in 1932 - a leader.
Obama catapulted himself into this
race with a speech in 2004, a speech that
resonated with a weary nation in a much
greater way than Obama could ever have
anticipated. That happened not only
because it was a brilliant piece of oratory,
but also because it, like Obama's cam-
paign, rejected the ugliness of identity
politics that has been a key part of Ameri-
can life since the 1960s. In the process, he
has stripped away the stupid, bizarre defi-
nition of a "real America" that the Repub-
lican Party has exploited since Sept. 11,
2001. This matters.
Critics mistake this appeal. They argue
that Obama is an empty vessel: He claims to
be anything and everything to get elected,
they say, but doesn't have the fortitude to
stand firm or follow through on anything.
That may have been a legitimate criti-
cism early on, when Obama's campaign
consisted of too much style and too little
substance. But if Obama has shown any-
thing in the course of his long campaign, it
is that he is a quick learner. His campaign
has come a long way in defining a platform
that will work for this country.
Electoral pressures have dampened
how outspoken Obama can be on issues
of poverty, taxes and health care; even
promising a tax cut for the middle class
has gotten him in trouble. Connecting the
dots he dares lay down in this impossibly
oppressive political climate, though, we
can tell Obama understands what is wrong
in our country and what needs to be done
to fix it.
He knows health care for every Ameri-
can is long overdue; he knows the solution
to our energy problems cannot just come
from the ocean floor off Florida's coasts;
he knows that the horrifying poverty Hur-
ricane Katrina revealed in New Orleans
exists in communities across this country;
he knows that terrorism cannot just be
combated with bombs, but must be fought
with international cooperation; he knows
the war in Iraq was misguided from the
start and must be ended as soon as safely
possible.
t ewill shock no one to learn that this
page endorses Barack Obama for
president. We do so, however, almost
without another option. Had his opponent,
John McCain, spared even a single one of
the qualities we once admired him for -
independence, compassion, reason - this
would have been a more difficult choice to
make. It's unfortunate that a once-respect-
able leader like McCain has fallen so far to
become "electable."
Needless to say, McCain's political ploy
has failed. He may have been able to con-
vince centrist Republicans to vote for him
in the primary (a race in which we expec-
tantly endorsed him), but it's clear now
that the Republican candidate is not the
independent, maverick or leader he claims
to be. His are the policies of the past eight
years, policies with which he himself once
disagreed.
As unfortunate as the political neutering
of maverick McCain is, more despicable
is the erosion of his ideals about running
clean campaigns. He has tried to build his
entire campaign on appeals to the worst
in Americans. In a shameless attempt to
exploit identity politics, McCain intro-
duced into'thisrace'the dangerously igno-
rant Sarah Palin as his running mate - a
woman who calls her opponent a friend of
terrorists and questions the "American-
ness" of any town with more than three.
stoplights, yet still manages to sleep at
night.
The nastiest things that have been said in
this campaign have come since the intro-
duction of Palin as McCain's running mate.
But she is only his attack dog; he has the
power to call her off, but chooses not to do
it. John McCain says he laments the nasty,
negative turn this campaign has taken in
recent weeks, yet he chooses to do nothing.
We've learned a lot about these
candidates during the past 20
months, especially about how
they handle pressure and crises. When his
electoral prospects looked bleak in his pri-
mary showdown with the Clinton political
machine, Obama showed his true colors -
he remained strong and never succumbed
to desperation or hostility. McCain, on the
other hand, despite all his talk of positive
campaigns, has sanctioned attack ads that
would make Lee Atwater blush, and con-
tinues to blame Obama for somehow mak-
ing him do it.
Perhaps the most telling moment of this
campaign came a few weeks ago, when
McCain worked himself into a huff over
the financial crisis he could no longer
deny. He promised to halt his campaign,
immediately fly to Washington and bro-
ker a bailout agreement. He arrived hours
too late, solved nothing and picked up his
campaign almost as if nothing happened.
Obama, on the other hand, showed
poise and patience. Neither he nor McCain
knew exactly what to do when the crisis
hit, but Obama was the one who remained
calm and rational. The last four years have
shown us the profound problems that can
arise with an impulsive, trigger-happy
president. McCain isn't George W. Bush,
but his impulsiveness suggests he would
make a lot of the same mistakes.
Obama has his faults, and it may be
tempting for some to choose (misguided)
experience over a new, upbeat idealist.
But imagine where this world would be if
Americans had made that mistake in 1932.
We endorse BARACK OBAMA for
president of the United States today not
because we believe he is the next FDR,
but because we recognize that the two
men share the two greatest qualities an
American president and the leader of the
free world can have - the audacity to tell
the truth about what ails America and the
wisdom to find the right solutions.
4
t's not uncommon for the U.S. gov-
ernment to legislate morality. In
recent years, higher profile exam-
ples have included
attempts to ban gay
marriage and stopj
embryonic stem .
cell research. While
less visible, the fed-
eral government's e
12-year assault on
comprehensive
sex education is no EMMARIE
exception.
Under the guise HUETTEMAN
of promoting acom-
mon-sense sexual
health program, the federal govern-
ment has peddled its abstinence-only
education packageto the states, encour-
agingthem to deny students a full edu-
cation in exchange for federal funding.
And for more than a decade, Michigan
has taken the bait and held on tight -
even as other states have dropped the
program in droves, rightfully acknowl-
edging that abstinence-only sex edu-
cation is not only ineffective but also
counterproductive.
In 1996, the federal government
instituted the State Abstinence Educa-
tion Program, an initiative designed to
incentivize abstinence-only education
in the states. By marketing its pro-
gram as a community-based initiative
to combat risky sexual behaviors and
teenage pregnancy through educa-
tion, it aroused strong support. Nearly
all of the states were quick to put up
their end of the matching funds, and
soon, 49 of the SO states traded in the
nuances of contraception and personal
choice for one dangerously overly-sim-
plified message: Don't do it.
Proponents of this program in
Michigan are particularly fond of
opening their fairy tale with these
details. They mention the program's
mission, its initial popularity and then
start in on the numbers - 108 and 75,
in particular. According to the Alan
Guttmacher Institute, those were
the teen pregnancy rates (per 1,000
females ages 15 to 19 in Michigan) in
1992 and 2000, respectively. It's hard
to deny that that 30.6-percent drop in
the state's teen pregnancy rate looks
good for the federal State Abstinence
Education Program and its Michigan
partner, the Michigan Abstinence
Partnership, which started in 1993.
Those numbers are hard to argue
with - that is, until one looks at the
rest of the report. Perhaps most tell-
ing is the comparison between Michi-
gan and California, the one state that
rejected federal abstinence education,
funding from the beginning. Michigan
may have seen its teen pregnancy rate
drop from 108 to 75 per 1,000 females
ages 15to19,but during that same peri-
od, California's rate dropped from 157
to 96. Further, a comprehensive look
at the Guttmacher Institute's report
shows that, in fact, every state saw
a drop in teen pregnancy from 1992
to 2000. Maybe Michigan has been a
little too quick to congratulate itself
after all.
Another statistic the state has cho-
sen to ignore is the plummeting num-
ber ofstates that still participate inthis
federal program. While Michigan was
in good company when it first agreed
to match the government's funding for
a narrow abstinence-only curriculum,
that doesn't negate the fact that partic-
ipation is dropping quickly these days.
In April, there were 33 participating.
states. Just six months later, only 23
remain.
But if abstinence-only education
has been such a success over the past
decade as states like Michigan claim,
then why are all of these states sud-
denly dropping the initiative? To put it
simply, it doesn't work. In April 2007,a
group commissioned by the U.S. Con-
gress to study the State Abstinence
Education Program released a report
stating that middle school students in
abstinence-only education programs
were just as likely to have sex in their
teenage years. When even the institu-
tion responsible for a program criti-
cizes it, it's time tocome to terms with
the truth.
With stated intentions to "(teach)
that a mutually faithful monogamous-
relationship in context of marriage is
expected standard of human sexual
activity," among other things, it should
have been clear from the beginning
that the government had more than
preventing teen pregnancy in mind
when it penned this section of the
Social Security Act. Especially for
those who have used textbooks with
chapters ripped out (to protect stu-
dents from the dangers of contracep-
tion, apparently), this realization is
tardy buthopefully not too late.
Why abstinence-
-only funds aren't
worth it.
While my hope is that Congress will
someday acknowledge the findings of
its own study and eliminate the State
Abstinence Education Program, it's
a more pressing issue that Michigan
hasn't caught on yet. The state must
reject federal funding for abstinence-
only education and instead focus on
developing a comprehensive sex edu-
cation program to give Michigan's
students a better understanding of
sexuality and the choices available to
them. And for the sake of being truly
comprehensive, those choices should
include abstinence - as long as its not
presented as the only choice.
Emmarie Huetteman is an associate
editorial page editor. She can be
reached at huetteme@umich.edu.
I
Math and science offer real-world
skills that other areas simply can't
SEND LETTERS TO: TOTHEDAILY@UMICH.EDU
to today's issues. Pushing education in math, science and
engineering are fundamental to our country's success.
Peter Keros
Engineering senior
I
I
EDITORIAL BOARD MEMBERS:
Nina Amilineni, Emad Ansari, Elise Baun, Harun Buljina, Ben Caleca, Satyajeet Deshmukh,
Brian Flaherty, Matthew Green, Emmarie Huetteman, Emma Jeszke, Shannon Kellman,
Edward McPhee, Emily Michels, Kate Peabody, Matthew Shutler, Robert Soave, Eileen Stahl,
Jennifer Sussex, lmran Syed, Radhika Upadhyaya, Rachel Van Gilder, Margaret Young
LETTERS TO THE EDITOR:
Readers are encouraged to submit letters to the editor. Letters should be less than 300
words and must include the writer's full name and University affiliation. Letters are
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Daily. We do not print anonymous letters. Send letters to tothedaily@umich.edu.
TO THE DAILY:
In Bryan Kolk's column about education in our coun-Creativity mited othe ts
try, he made a good point about education - that creativ-
ity and leadership are necessary to solve today's problems
(Getting creative with education, 10/27/2008). What he TO THE DAILY:
didn't seem to understand is that engineering, based on BryanKolk's column Monday about creativityineduca-
math and science, teaches both creativity and leadership tion was thoroughly mistaken in its criticism of the educa-
and will produce the solutions to today's problems. Math tion system (Getting creative with education, 10/27/2008).
and science are the building blocks to engineering, just as We can all agree with Kolk's basic premise that creativity
reading is the building block to the humanities. in the classroom should be a priority, but the article went
Let me say that I fully support arts and humanities. too far. No Child Left Behind has faults, but this doesn't
I'm an avid musician (clarinet player), and I studied Latin mean that there is something fundamentally wrong with
for five years. I enjoyed these studies immensely, but I the philosophy behind our education system.
didn't gain from them the knowledge or skills I needed Education is often caricatured for inhumanly and
for today's world. I gained these skills from being an engi- robotically producing soulless cogs in the vast machine of
neering student. society. However, the "conservative and misguided" view
Let me try an example. How are we going to solve the that education has a utilitarian purpose is not the prob-
energy crisis? Studying Catullus's Roman poetry didn't lem. Education is still needed to build the basic skills nec-
give me an answer, nor did studying Carl Maria von essary for being productive in society. The reality is that
Weber's Clarinet Concerto No. 2. The math, science and people educate themselves because they want to advance
engineering I've taken here at the University gave me economically, and this isn't a misguided philosophy.
the skills to solve this issue. Whether they were design Additionally, a focus on math and science doesn't stifle
courses where I had to build a tool or product, or science imagination. On the contrary, math and science can be
classes where I learned how engines operate and how applied in ways that are creative, imaginary and entre-
to make them more efficient, these courses taught me to preneurial. If you don't believe me, ask any engineering
think about the problem, analyze it and create solutions. major. Creativity isn't merely confined to the humanities.
I'm involved in combustion research at the University, and For instance, public policy that emphasizes math and sci-
this research could reduce our oil usage and noxious emis- ence doesn't necessarily shackle a student's mind to the 4
sions from cars. Sorry, but neither Catullus nor Weber prison of crippling unoriginality.
helped me with my research. Education will always be an imperfect system. But for
This is but one of the many examples of how engineers a column purporting to advance creativity, it was wholly
will solve today's problems, and how math and science are uncreative in proposing a solution.
necessary for these solutions. So before writing off math
and science as "memorizing facts" and unimportant in our Ruotao Wang
world, look at which subjects actually produce solutions LSA senior
',