Princeton alumni amnesia!

Parent Cafe
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<p>imiracle911, I appreciate your point. I do think that young people should be cut some slack and given a second chance - you’re not alone in having made mistakes while you were young - very young, in your case. But that principle is easy to stretch. What is being discussed is the fact that Judge Alito essentially bragged about his association with a group which existed for the purpose of advancing ideals which he probably would not want people to think he now supports. It wasn’t an impulsive act, and it wasn’t something he did in college. (The group is an alumni organization which he joined after graduating.) In 1985, when he was in his late 30’s, he elected to point out his membership in the organization as a positive thing to support his request for a job he was seeking from people he felt would approve of the organization’s ideology. He didn’t have to do that. Now, in a setting where support of those ideals would be embarrassing, he is claiming he doesn’t remember anything about it. To me, it suggests a person who is willing to “adjust” his opinions to suit the perceived bias of those he is trying to impress, which is less than admirable, and leads me to wonder what his real moral beliefs are. That’s all there really is to it.</p>

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<p>Then he’ll make a good politician, administrator, or executive. What could be better?</p>

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<p>Hopefully some future prospect of the high court will not have to use her well earned travel discounts to create distance between herself and the AARP, with their man of the year–and our hero–Harry Belafonte.</p>

<p>Here’s Harry doing the limbo in Venezuela:</p>

<p>“A lot of Jews high up in the hierarchy of the Third Reich. Color does not necessarily denote quality, content, or value. The black man is a tyrant. He’s first and foremost a tyrant. Then he incidentally is black. Bush is a tyrant. And if he gathers around him black tyrants, then they all have to be treated by the leadership.”</p>

<p>…eh-oh, how low can you go Harry?</p>

<p>But of course, in the hackneyed parlance of our time, Judge Alito is being “swiftboated” by some very indignant and self-righteous stiffs.</p>

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<p>As I said, the tactics of the right: 1. Deflect attention by attacking some democrat. (Kennedy, Byrd (!?) Biden, HARRY FREAKING BELAFONTE!?!?!? I’m sorry, Seasong, but what the heck are you smoking?
2. Spin the news to make it seem like it’s about something other than it really is. Alito isn’t being “swiftboated.” No one has crawled out from under a rock and claimed they saw Alito putting stink bombs in the girls’ dorms at Princeton - that would be “swiftboating”. This is like asking Kerry why he threw his medal ribbons in the fire after he returned from VietNam - a legitimate question which people were entirely entitled to ask (and did.) If the new right had the integrity to stick to that kind of legitimate challenge of democrats I’d have more respect for todays faux “conservatives.” Alito claiming not to remember being a member of an organization he proudly claimed as an asset in 1985 is like Clinton saying he didn’t inhale - not something for either man to be proud of whether they joined/inhaled or not.</p>

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<p>Did Alito claim he didn’t remember being a member, as you say [fwiw, that’s swiftboating, as I understand the phrase]? Or, rather did he claim not to have been involved with all of CAP’s editorial decisions and policies? …claimed he joined because of their support of ROTC, in the face of liberals trying to push ROTC off Princeton’s campus. It was a common move in those days. Many opposed it in spirit, some in action…in such a way that they could.</p>

<p>Sounds legit to me…but probably not to the swiftboat set who feel he should be CAP’s official apologist decades after the fact.</p>

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<p>Associated Press, January 11:

  • Daily Princetonian.
    </code></pre>

<p>The ROTC spin was cooked up as cover. It’s to Alito’s (limited) credit that he didn’t try to actually claim that it was the “real” reason, but just put it out there as a possible (and politically palatable) excuse for his membership after claiming he didn’t even remember joining. There are a lot of reasons why the ROTC story doesn’t hold water (which you could find out if you cared enough to do anything but echo the right wing propaganda being dished out to the gullible) but it was good enough to satisfy the sheep long enough to get Alito past the embarrassing truth. </p>

<p>So what exactly is your definition of swiftboating?</p>

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<p>just curious should I hire an attorney before I join any organizations, write any papers, play devils advocate at my University, explore learn etc if I choose to pursue public office? That could be a very expensive process. no drinking, smoking, dating, locker room jokes about women, no obvious nerd like behavior- we are lucky to have Leahy and Kennedy and Biden - 3 men charged with examining minute details of Alitos life to make sure we are protected from this MONSTER!!! this thread is a joke and so are the hypocrites judging Alito. I intend to live my life unfortunately if I have anything to offer it will never be in the govt sector because it looks like the people on this board would fry me on a griddle for my postings on college confidential!! So everyone with ambition BEWARE!!!</p>

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<p>That’s weird - the index shows a post on this thread by MrRomantic405, but it doesn’t appear here, and MrR’s posts don’t show up when searched for. either. Hmmm. Who is the mysterious MrRomantic405, and what has he done to our forum?</p>

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<p>The Dartmouth Review crowd (including D’ Souza), in a nationally televised interview some years ago, described Black Studies or Africana Studies as “Ghetto Studies.” I don’t make false statements and I don’t denigrate folks simply because I don’t like their political views, but I regard that comment as a racist one, but that’s just me, Driver.</p>

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<p>Is Dinesh D’Souza a racist? You be the judge:
(From the Center for Media & Democracy)</p>

<pre><code>* Dartmouth Review
</code></pre>

<p>Under D’Souza’s editorship, the Dartmouth Review became notorious both for its attacks on alleged liberal bias at the university and for its provocative articles on racial topics. It published a parody titled “Dis Sho Ain’t No Jive Bro,” which mocked the way African-American students supposedly speak. (“Dese boys be sayin’ that we be comin’ here to Dartmut an’ not takin’ the classics. You know, Homa, Shakesphere; but I hea’ dey all be co’d in da ground, six feet unda, and whatchu be askin’ us to learn from dem?”) Also during his tenure as editor, according to a September 22, 1995, article in The Washington Post, the Review “published an interview with a former leader of the Ku Klux Klan, using a mock photograph of a black man hanging from a campus tree.”</p>

<pre><code>* The End of Racism
</code></pre>

<p>D’Souza’s key work is the 700-page The End of Racism, a book that managed to offend even conservative blacks with its declaration that black culture is pathologically inferior to white culture and that “the criminal and irresponsible black underclass represents a revival of barbarism in the midst of Western civilization” (p. 527). D’Souza’s history of southern segregation characterized it as merely misguided paternalism, “based on the code of the Christian and the gentleman” and intended to protect blacks: “Segregation was intended to assure that blacks, like the handicapped, would be insulated from the radical racists and - in the paternalist view - permitted to perform to the capacity of their arrested development” (p. 179). The book’s declarations were so extreme that two prominent African-American conservatives, Robert Woodson, Sr. and Glenn Loury, renounced their affiliation with the American Enterprise Institute to protest AEI’s sponsorship of the book. According to Loury, AEI marketed The End of Racism extensively in business circles, and “Republican staffers on Capitol Hill are said to have eagerly anticipated how the book might move the affirmative action debate in the ‘right direction.’”</p>

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<p>Kub, I’d be interested in anything you have to say that isn’t cut-and-pasted op/ed/review. How about it? Dig up an original source on your own. Here’s one, from Dinesh, writing in a 25th anniversary retrospective <a href=“http://www.dartreview.com/archives/2005/09/22/dsouza_remembers_the_early_days.php:[/url]”>http://www.dartreview.com/archives/2005/09/22/dsouza_remembers_the_early_days.php:&lt;/a&gt;

As I mentioned before, DR was, at that point, a particularly “finger-in-the-eye-of liberals” type of publication. “Ebonics” was fair game. I don’t think they have anything to apologize for, given the environment in which they found themselves. At least they used words. They didn’t don berets, grab shotguns, and take over the college administration building, like so many poseurs did. Or do you even know about that part of our history?</p>