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Editor in Chief:
Jessica Blanchard
Managing Editor:
Jeremy Lang
Editorial Editor:
Julie Lauderbaugh
Assistant Editorial Editor:
Jacquelyn Lewis
Tuesday, February 19,2002
Editorial
Skating judges
illustrate well
the Olympic art
of the screw-job
(U-WIRE) DEKALB, 111. —
By this time, all talk of pairs skating, pairs of
gold medal winners and pairs of scandals
deserves at least a pair of sighs.
After all, in the throes of a slow news week in
which the world's attention is on Utah of all places,
the controversy involving Russians, Canadians and
crooked judges everywhere has received more ink
and airtime than an O.J. Simpson-Mike Tyson
celebrity golf outing.
But, please forgive all those hard-working reporters
sent out with liberal expense reports and visions of
gold medals in their eyes. The case of Russians Elena
Bereznaia and Anton Sikharulidze and former silver
medalists Jamie Sale and David Pelletier of Canada
taps into one universal appeal: the art of the screw-job.
With each regretful judging revelation and smooth
interview, it's easy to forget even what started the
whole thing. With Americans out of the running for
anything resembling a medal, the crowd and the con
tinent backed the Canadians. However, despite what
experts called a clearly superior performance, the
Russian team sat atop the medals podium.
The case of the pairs skating situation captures
conversation just as the cases of the 1972 men's bas
ketball team and Roy Jones Jr. in 1988 continue to
confound sports historians. In both cases, the clear
winners had victory firmly grasped, only to lose the
gold medal through official intervention.
Everyone can identify with those Canadians, even
those few Antarctic humans at the other end of the
world. Who hasn't felt robbed and empty-handed?
This isn't a case of being the bridesmaid and never
the bride. This is a case of silver looking more like
fool's gold
Unfortunately, the whole sad trend will continue as
country loyalties and deals dominate any sport that
demands judging. And as long as people continue to
care about such sports, the outrage will remain. The
only solution, a pipe dream even for the most radical
International Olympic Committee members, would
be independent judges — if there is such a thing.
The IOC, still wishing these games will end with
out a memory after the placement process featured a
nice American dose of corrupt electioneering, needs
another black eye like pairs skating needs more than
one gold-medal-winning team. And, just as Jones Jr.
and those 1972 hoopsters know, the memory remains
far after the rings leave town.
This editorial was taken courtesy of the Northern State Illinois
newspaper, the Northern Star.
Editorial Policy
Please incitideconiaci information The Emerald
reserves the right to edit for space, grammar and style.
The world needs Truman’s hunesty nnw
“Some of the presidents were great,
and some of them weren’t. I can say
that because I wasn’t one of the great
presidents, but I had a good time try
ing to be one, I can tell you that. ”
— Harry S. Truman, 33rd president
of the United States.
That may have been Truman’s assess
ment of his own presidency, but his
tory in some ways has proved him
wrong. He had all the hallmarks of be
ing a caretaker president: He was short
tempered, had little rhetorical flourish
and had been inserted into the presi
dency after his predecessor, one of the
most popular presidents of his time,
died unexpectedly. No wonder it
seemed Truman was destined to keep
the Oval Office oc
cupied only until
more suitable mate
rial came along. He
was suitable
enough on his own.
With the way histo
ry’s been unfolding
lately, we could use
“Give-’em-hell Har
ry” right about now.
We are in a peri
od of time that
Truman would
have felt at home
in. Enron is threat
ening to bring in
stability to the government at the same
time we are prosecuting a war we
hadn’t wanted. Truman was in the
same boat — twice. As a senator from
Missouri, he had been disgusted with
the extravagant waste and fraud that
contractors and labor unions were com
mitting during the massive buildup of
military forces after the attack on Pearl
Harbor. These included building Army
camps with extremely cheap materials
for exorbitant prices and “featherbed
ding” union workers by having them
on the job so that extra labor costs
would go into union coffers.
These excesses were smokescreened
by the usual gang of lobbyists, compa
ny Ken Lay would feel comfortable in.
Truman never bowed to the lobbyists.
In the Senate, he
headed a committee
Give
that succeeded in ending many of
these practices.
With the Enron mess the way it is, we
could use a Harry Truman to look into
the shady business of the Senate. Sadly,
we don’t have any Trumans left. While
we have people who have stepped up
to the plate, their effort no doubt is a
Band-Aid meant to reassure voters, not
the hard political road to hoe.
After Truman’s ascendancy into the
presidency in April 1945, Nazism had
receded as the bogeyman of Europe.
Instead, our erstwhile allies, the Sovi
et Union, were the major threat that
loomed in the minds of Americans.
Truman didn’t want war with the So
viets. Again, it was thrust upon him
when North Korea attacked United
Nations forces across the 38th Parallel
in 1950. The United States was at war.
Truman, once again, had a tough po
litical decision. The immensely popular
General Douglas MacArthur was agitat
ing for an expansion of the war into Chi
na, which would have brought them
and the Soviet Union into what by then
could have become a nuclear war, and
worse, for sending diplomatic threats to
the Chinese, which was the purview
solely of the state department and the
president. Truman did the only thing
open to him: He recalled MacArthur
from his position as the commander in
Korea in 1951. Sen. Joe McCarthy, the
Red-baiter from Wisconsin, as well as a
large part of the American public exco
riated Truman as being a Communist
sympathizer, and this scorn may have
been the major cause of his decision not
to run in 1952. Still, Truman braved
public anger and did the right thing.
As he himself said, he may not have
been one of the great presidents. He
was something better: one of the hon
est presidents.
E-mail columnist Pat Payne
at patpayne@dailyemerald.com. His opinions
do not necessarily reflect those of the Emerald.
Letters to the editor
Dreier creates racist environment
The University hosts many students
from Russia, China and Vietnam, and
although Tim Dreier's ASUO candidate
Q&A in Friday's Emerald was a joke, as
an international student, I didn't find it
amusing at all(“ASUO ticket vows to
eliminate ‘Red threat’ on campus,”
ODE, Feb. 15).
Many students from these Communist
countries will vote, but not for someone
who creates a hostile and racist environ
ment. Dreier says he wants to eliminate
subversives, which would include stu
dents from these countries. Internation
al students are an asset to the University
no matter what country they come from.
Shun Yanagishita
junior
anthropology
Dreier seeks leadership through fear
I don’t often take an interest in cam
pus politics, but the article about Tim
Dreier in the Emerald (“ASUO ticket
vows to eliminate ‘Red threat’ on cam
pus,” ODE, Feb. 15) caught my eye and
left me with a question — is this a joke?
I could barely believe that someone
would actually make statements like
these, and to be running for a student
government office. Tim Dreier’s state
ments and policies are the kind of para
noid ignorance that we can only pray
can be healed.
“Subversives?” Who are they? What
are they subversive to? What’s “un
American?” What’s the threat posed by
Communism? I don’t see Dreier clarify
ing any of these. And dueling pistols to
solve differences? If that’s not a joke, I
sincerely would believe him to be mad.
Because I know that it will be the in
stant reaction of anyone sympathetic to
Dreier to label me as a left-wing subver
sive, I must say that I am not. I have
never in my life considered myself po
litical at all and do not hold allegiance
or sympathies to any political group.
Tim Dreier is running on buzzwords
and paranoia. He wants to gain leader
ship over other students by playing off
of vague fears and enforced conformi
ty. He will not be getting my vote.
Nathan Edwards
junior
english
Don’t judge Olympics coverage
I was amazed and baffled by the guest
editorial “Olympics not the place for pa
triotic zealots” (ODE, Feb. 13). The claim
that “NBC is trying to show that America
is still the best” is both naive and ridicu
lous. The only support for this claim is a
passing reference to “medal counts and
human interest stories about American
athletes.” Medal counts are statistics that
are compiled for every Olympics, regard
less of whether the United States is in the
lead. And NBC does not speak for the
Olympics and is not affiliated with them
in any way; NBC is simply the network
that happens to be covering the Games
this year, and for an overwhelmingly
American demographic.
They have every right to give their au
dience what it wants to see: information
about the athletes representing their
country — just as I am sure the networks
covering the Games in other nations are
doing. Our Olympic athletes are vastly
underappreciated in this country any
way, as compared to athletes in many
other nations, where they are often re
garded as heroes. It is certainly true that
“The Olympics should be a showcase of
the athleticism of the greatest athletes of
all nations,” and this is exactly what they
are this year and every Olympic year, re
gardless of the television coverage.
Finally, as a side note, I found it utterly
disgusting that the editorial chose to com
pare a relatively mild increase in Ameri
can patriotism dining these Games with
the fascist ideals of the Adolph Hitler-run
1936 Summer Olympics in Berlin. »
Brian Stutzman
junior
general science