4A - Thursday, January 13, 2011 The Michigan Daily - michigandaily.com 4A - Thursday, January13, 2011 The Michigan Daily - michigandaily.com WJ E JICd14*ian &I46 J Edited and managed by students at the University of Michigan since 1890. 420 Maynard St. Ann Arbor, MI 48109 tothedaily@michigandaily.com STEPHANIE STEINBERG EDITOR IN CHIEF MICHELLE DEWITT and EMILY ORLEY EDITORIAL PAGE EDITORS KYLE SWANSON 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. Prioritizing public safety What can be done to prevent future tragedies T he shooting in Tucson, Ariz. on Jan. 8 that left six dead and Representative Gabrielle Giffords in criti- cal condition has many wondering what could have been done to prevent the tragedy. Arizona's gun laws per- mit even an individual with a history of mental instabil- ity to legally purchase a weapon, and there was no security personnel surrounding Giffords at the event. The incident has also led many to question the effect of violent political discourse. None of these factors change the fact that the alleged attacker is a disturbed person, but they're impor- tant to consider when contemplating public safety at politi- cal events. We would have walked here from San Diego.' - Michigan head football coach Brady Hoke said about his new job at a press conference at Schembechler Hall on Wednesday. DANIEL GOLD E-MAIL DANIEL AT DWGOLD@UMICH.EDU GREAT JOBS, ON PAPER.. Captain of the President of the Michigan Head Titantic United States Football Coach 1912 2008 2011 Repea needs morethan appeal 0 No permit is required in Arizona to carry a concealed weapon, and weapons can be brought into many public places. Jared Loughner, the shooter, had a history of drug use and mentally unstable behav- ior, which contributed to his inability to join the military and his expulsion from community college. Under Arizona's laws, Loughner had no problem legally purchas- ing an assault weapon. At Giffords' event, there was no security, and her constituents were able to wait in a line in order to speak with her face-to-face. Arizona's gun laws are among the weak- est in the country. While background checks for gun purchases can reveal prior offenses, they do nothing to assess the mental health of the buyer. The state of Arizona needs to seriously evaluate what kinds of weapons gun sellers are supplying and whose hands they are putting them into. The website for Loughner's alleged weapon - GLOCK "Safe Action Pistols" a'fdvertise' hatthe gun n ebts 'e4uit- ' ments of police, special units, security services and the military." The fact that a civilianinArizona is able to asnotonly purchase such a weapon, but also carry it in public is alarming. The sale of assault weapons to civilians and the sale of any gun to someone who is mentally unstable, needs to be reconsidered. The lack of protection for Giffords at the event is somewhat shocking. It's trou- bling that an armed individual was able to approach the congresswoman so easily. While bodyguards and extensive police presence at political events is both expen- sive and unnecessary, some safety mea- sures should be put into place. something as simple as a security checkpoint where people are screened and patted down could have completely derailed Loughner's plans. In the aftermath of the Tuscan mas- sacre, many media figures and politicians have been questioning the effect of violent political rhetoric. While directly linking this type of discussion to the actions of an individual is absurd, there is some validity to the argument that political discourse has become too extreme. In our culture of 24-hour news coverage, conflict is omni- present RdtIppnents are constantly demonized. The spirit of debate and com- petition is what makes democracy func- ,tion, but thereia certainly,:o efor a little civility. Politicians and talking heads need to carefully consider their words and the message they're sending. fter President Barack Obama's straints. The story of the DADT repeal to changingthe policy. State of the Union address last legislation is full of lessons about how Finally, as in any legislative debate, anuary, a friend of mine tweet- our political system functions and the opposition took all defensive mea- ed, "End Don't Ask shows how difficult it can be to pass sures available to stall or block. the Don't Tell now. Not even the most promising legislation. repeal. Dissenting leaders within the in a few months, The first institutional factor that military urged voters to lobby their not soon. Do it contributed to the lengthy timeline elected officials for upholdingthe ban, now." If only it were of the bill was Obama's campaign. It's and Congressional Republicans stated that simple. true that the president campaigned they were unconvinced that a repeal in December, the on a platform of repealing the policy. had full military backing.Although the president finally However, whenever any candidate House passed a repeal measure rela- signed the repeal runs for office, that individual must tively easilyin May, Republican filibus- of "don't ask, don't build a coalition of diverse voting tersblocked the bill in the Senate, once tell" - the ban on JEREMY blocks in order to win the election. in September and onceinearly Decen- homosexual men once candidates are in office, they ber. Bythetimeofthefinalvotethough, and women serving LEVY must prioritize certain parts of their the Senate gained enough Republican openly in the mili- electoral platform, inevitably alien- support for the bill's passage. tary - into law. For ating certain groups who voted for supporters of the them. It's clear that when the presi- repeal, the elongated process leading dent came into office, the stimulus bill up.t it was painstakingly slow. The and health are-reform aere his bigv rnsitufiof.l president campaigned on a platform gest priorities. Perhaps.at the expense= 11 itutiona . of ending DADT, he had Democrat of the DADT repeal, the abovepolicies . p jpritie , both houses or sp gg required jtasopf political cap " arr-lers prev ni and a majority of Americans supported ital in order to pass. changing the policy. Despite these fac-, Next, obtaining military support major reform. tors, the repeal wasn't passed until the for the repeal was itself a convoluted lame-duck session concluded the presi- process. The Pentagon must approve dent's second year in office. What's the DADT repeal before it can be more, for supporters of the. repeal, implemented, meaning that it would My point is that there are always this is a no-brainer issue. The old pol- have been pointless for the president institutional barriers that prevent icy was discrimination, end of story. It to pass a bill without first seeking passing major reforms, regardless of becomes tempting to ask - what took military support. In early 2009, the what those reforms are. As my Pub- so long? president began meeting with top lic Policy Prof. John Ciorciari puts it, And while I do support the DADT Pentagon officials - who were simul- there are lots of ways for policy actors repeal, I'd like to challenge fellowsup- taneously managing the wars in Iraq to play offense, and lots of ways to play porters to understand why it took so and Afghanistan - to begin garnering defense, and those actors will clash at long to pass. It's too easy to just say such support. The pentagon leader- every juncture in the process. This was that the president lacked the boldness ship did come to approve the measure, true for DADT and will continue to be to take a strong stance or that it was as Secretary of Defense Robert Gates true for major legislation in the future. all because of those stubborn Repub- and Adm. Mike Mullen, the chairman LGBTQ activists can criticize the pres- licans. The answer lies largely in the of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, told Con- ident all they want for not-taking swift- : fact that our political system was gress in February. The Pentagon also er action, but everyone has something intentionally designed to be complex released a study on Nov 30 that said to learn from observing how the repeal and slow moving. Officials face politi- repealing the ban posed little risk to did getpassed. cal checks and constraints at every military operations. Regardless, there level of discourse, and it would simply is still strong resistance within the - Jeremy Levy can be reached be foolish forthem to ignore such con- military, especially the Marine Corps, at jeremlev@umich.edu. EDITORIAL BOARD MEMBERS: Aida Ali, Will Butler, Eaghan Davis, Michelle DeWitt, Ashley Griesshammer, . Erika Mayer, Harsha Nahata, Emily Orley, Harsha Panduranga, Teddy Papes, Roger Sauerhaft, Seth Soderborg, Andrew Weiner ROGER SAUERHAFTI The right man to lead us Hiring Brady Hoke to coach the Michigan football team wasn't the sexy choice, but it was definitely the right choice. Just watch his intro- ductory press conference, and try telling me you wouldn't love to play for this guy. Sure, I dreamed- about Jim Harbaugh com- ing home and rescuing Michigan from medioc- rity, and when that fell apart, I relished the idea of Les Miles bringing his winning ways back to Ann Arbor. I was one of many. I even saw a poll that showed fans preferred Miles over the lesser- known Hoke by a margin of approximately 80 percent to 14 percent. Then Miles was out, and I had to figure out if our new coach's first name was Brady or Grady. I was stunned and left wondering if the Michigan job wasn't all it was cracked up to be. Perhaps the incredibly poor treatment of former coach Rich Rodriguez tainted the job's appeal in the eyes of elite coaches. A friend's Facebook status even said "Michigan Football: 1879-2010. Rest in Peace." After the announcement, I read up on Brady Hoke and wasn't too enthralled by his creden- tials. Nobody had ever heard of him, and he sported a sub-.500 record in non-automatic qual- ifying conferences. But raise your hand if you think Ohio State messed up when it hired Divi- sion I-AA coach Jim Tressel. Tell me how former Iowa State coach Gene Chizik did in his first two years at Auburn. They've done alright. So why not Hoke? We're getting someone who can really coach defense. His stellar work as Michigan's defen- sive line coach between 1995 and 2002 produced the nation's stingiest run defense and a Nation- al Championship in 1997. Wolverine offensive guard Steve Hutchinson called Hoke the best coach he ever played for - no small feat when you've played for current President of the Cleve- land Browns, Mike Holmgren. Fellow Michigan greats Charles Woodson, Tom Brady, Mike Hart, Desmond Howard, Braylon Edwards and Jon Jansen - who all know a little bit about football- also gave stellar reviews of Hoke. Yesterday I saw what all the former players raved about. In the press conference introducing him as the new head coach, Hoke sounded gruff and mean but loving of his players at the same time. He talked tough and bluntly in a boom- ing voice about growing up in Ohio, hating Ohio State and his unmatched love for Michigan foot- ball. He emphasized toughness and defense and stated multiple times he would have walked here from San Diego for this opportunity to coach the Wolverines. Michigan Athletic Director Dave Brandon even noted that Hoke accepted the job before asking about salary - something Brandon recalled onlyBo Schembechler doing before. The Bo comparisons are unavoidable, espe- cially if you hear Hoke talk. Just YouTube the press conference and watch him defiantly stare down the crowd when asked if the job lost its lus- ter. It's Bo reincarnated. This guy's legit - and he can definitely coach. He's also led two success- ful transitions as a coach and his losing record is more a product of what he inherited than an indictment on his performance. His teams all improved dramatically with him at the helm. With Hoke, I see total sincerity and nothing contrived. If you hear him talk just once, you know you can trust him, and you see his com- passion toward people. Recruiting, as he said, is a "people business," and given his qualities and the enormous resources of Michigan, this should be a real strength for the program in the coming years. And although he's aware of the difficult situation ahead of him with regard to this year's recruiting class, among other things, he views the challenges as "fun" and part of football. Oh, and for the record, Hoke was sure to men- tion where sophomore quarterback Denard Rob- inson fit in: "When you have talented players, it's your job to mold them into what's best for your football team." In other words, even though he deplores the spread offense, he recognizes the need to adapt his system a bit when given a talent as special as Robinson. We have every reason to support Hoke as our new head coach, and we need to give him the chance we never afforded Rodriguez to be suc- cessful. Hopefully we've learned our lesson, and thankfully, we have the perfect man ready to lead us. Go Blue. Roger Sauerhaft is an LSA senior. the podium Science Savvy: Nick Clift discusses the technology of cars and the shift toward electric vehicles. Go to michigandaily.com/blogs/The Podium ,ASA SMITH I A Hoke-y hire I would like to preface this by saying that any assertions by a fan before a coach has held his first practice, let alone his firstgame, is going to be problematic. I understand there are probably things about new head coach Brady 'Hoke I don't know that will make him a successful coach who can beat Michigan State and Ohio State more frequently than the previous coach - which means one time. Having said all of that, I think this was a pure panic hire that was the result of a botched succession plan put in place by Michigan Athletic Director Dave Brandon. The time to fire coaches is not in January - it's at the very latest Dec 1. It is incredibly unfair to expect a coach to put together a decent recruiting class in17 days, especially one who is coming from the West Coast - where it's unlikely his recruits would fol- low. Everyone knew former head coach Rich Rodriguez was gone in December, and the onlythingthe lame-duck period did was to put coach Hoke under the gun now. At best, the next class of athletes will be a rag-tag group of Michigan fans and players who failed to attach themselves to another school beforehand. But that is just one class, and had Brandon pulled a Har- baugh or Miles out of his hat, it likely wouldn't have made much of a difference. Instead, he got a coach whose record is woefully unimpressive. in his eight years as a head coach, Hoke has compiled a losing record of 47-50. This is not the worst thing in the world, as it's incredibly hard to compile a winning record at schools like Ball State where it's the team's job to lose games to teams like Missouri, Boston Col- lege and Michigan. However, it's the lack of consistency and team buildingthat worries me more than anything else. The sterling mark on Hoke's record was the miraculous 0 2008 season when he coached Ball State to a 12-0 regular season record, which was marred by a loss in the Mid Amer- ican Conference championship game and a loss to Tulsa in the bowl game. This is impressive, no qualifications needed. But the problem I see is that in the following year, this team went 2-10 with wins against Eastern and Western Michigan and losses to schools like New Hampshire and Temple - not exactly powerhouses. It seems that Hoke didn't leave his team in good shape. This makes me think that maybe the coach had less to do with it than three once in a generation players in Nate Davis, MiQuale Lewis and Sean Baker who all clicked at the same time. Lewis ran for over 1,700 yards, Davis was a consummate leader who is currently in the NFL and Baker had 94 tackles and six interceptions. Once again, I have all the respect in the world for Hoke's coaching and recruiting these players, but his unimpressive record - 35-46 in other years - isvery concerning. I want to be wrong about this. I want coach Hoke to be mentioned in the same sentence as coaches like Lloyd Carr, Bo Schembechler, FieldingYost and Fritz Crisler.I want him to beat OSU coach Jim Tressel out of his sweater vest and return Michigan to the glory days. Unfortunately, I don't think this is going to happen. I think we are in for another three or four years of mediocrity and losses in big games. But I would really appreciate it if coach Hoke makes me sound like a foolwith a win on Oct. 22 and Nov. 26, 2011. Asa Smith is an LSA junior. LETTERS TO THE EDITOR: Readers are encouraged to submit letters to the editor. Letters should be fewer than 300 words and must include the writer's full name and University affiliation. We do not print anonymous letters. Send letters to tothedaily@michigandaily.com