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Oregon Daily Emerald
COMMENTARY
Editor in Chief:
Brad Schmidt
Managing Editor:
Jan Tobias Montry
Editorial Editor:
Travis Willse
Thursday, November 6, 2003
EDITORIAL.
DPS incident
precipitates
new policies
In July, an event transpired that shook the Department
of Public Safety at its foundation: Then-DPS officer Michael
John Bonertz drove his vehicle onto a campus sidewalk and
struck 26-year-old Eugene resident Donald Tean Gariepy,
who Bonertz said was engaging in "suspicious activity" and
attempting to flee via bicycle.
A few weeks later an internal DPS report found miscon
duct in the officer's actions and loosely cited vague direc
tives regarding vehicle use. Administrative Lt. Joan Saylor,
who conducted the report concluded that Bonertz danger
ously pursued Gariepy despite "specific directions not to
drive on the sidewalk." It became apparent through the sit
uation and report that DPS policies regarding pursuits were
non-existent aside from verbal directives.
Last week DPS publicized its intention to develop a
new policy detailing how officers should appropriately
pursue suspects. The newfound policy will closely re
semble that of the Eugene Police Department, DPS Inter
im Director Tom Hicks said at a recent Public Safety Ad
visory Group meeting.
And the news couldn't have come at a better time.
In the aftermath of the summer incident, the students at
the University deserved a hint of accountability. It's good
to see the time has finally come, and that DPS has stepped
up and given students a sign the department is in fact tak
ing the issue very seriously.
It should be stated that officers serve a vital purpose on
campus, and the environment simply wouldn't be as safe
without them. Just two weeks ago, officers diffused a po
tentially violent situation in the EMU Amphitheater when
campus activists clashed. For these services and more, stu
dents should be grateful.
But the summer events did prove that officers can be
prone to bad decisions, and as a result further analysis
into policy obviously serves the greater public good, as
is true with any public office granted any sort of policing
powers. Thus, the new policy was the best decision that
could be made. Another step would have been to fire the
officer, but he had already resigned before the internal
report was issued.
Furthermore, although trust between students and DPS
may have been damaged by the summer's incident, DPS
has jusdy make amends and renewed perception of the de
partment's professionalism. A mediation program for stu
dents with grievances against officers has been proposed,
and DPS has been active in the Public Safety Advisory
Group, which allows ASUO and DPS to smooth out any
student misgivings with the department.
All in all, it seems DPS has learned from the incident and
taken legitimate steps to curb future problems.
EDITORIAL POLICY
This editorial represents the opinion of the Emerald
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EDITORIAL BOARD
Brad Schmidt
Editor in Chief
Jan Tobias Montry
Managing Editor
Aimee Rudin
Freelance Editor
Ayisha Yahya
News Editor
Travis Willse
Editorial Editor
'vjee-havVA
REAL ’
DEMOCRATS,
Steve Baggs Illustrator
The Real, the new and the Kucinich
I feel bad for Dennis Kucinich.
According to a recent Washington Post
ABC News poll, he would receive fewer
votes than Carol Moseley Braun if the
election were held today. He is losing in
a presidential race to a black woman.
How embarrassing! She has at least one
good excuse for not getting votes; main
ly, many white Americans would sooner
vote for French President Jacques Chirac
for president than a black person. What's
Kucinich's excuse? He should change his
campaign motto to, "Hey, I'm a white
man over here!"
Carol Moseley Braun must contend
with a hallowed tradition in the media:
treating black congresswomen poorly. If
they mention her name — and that's a
big if — it is usually in connection with
her past failures and controversies. They
rarely mention that she was the first and
only black female U.S. senator in this
nation's history, the first black demo
cratic senator and the first female sena
tor from Illinois. If anybody could break
the White House's gender and color bar
riers, it would be Braun. That's another
big if, which is why she is fighting for
not-last place with Kucinich and the
other two bottom-feeders, John Edwards
and Al Sharpton.
That leaves a handful of white men
who are still serious contenders with the
election one year away and counting.
They can be divided into two different
groups: the so-called New Democrats
and the so-called Real Democrats.
The New Democrats scare me the
most. Their true believer is Joseph Ueber
man; John Kerry and Wesley Clark are
honorary members. They rally under the
corporate-funded Democratic Leadership
Council (DLC), a group formed in the
mid-80s for the purpose of pushing the
Democratic Party further and further to
the right, in much the same way the
Christian Coalition pushed the Republi
can Party to the right.
On their Web site, the DLC claims to
"believe in a Third Way that rejects the
old left-right debate." Funny, this Third
Way, summed up in the "Hyde Park Dec
David Jagernauth
Critical mass
laration," reads exactly like the Republi
can "Contract with America." The DLC
couches their beliefs in thick rhetorical
code designed to put conservative
swing-voters at ease without upsetting
their liberal base.
Rather than say they are against affir
mative action programs, they talk about
"resisting identity politics," "promoting
character education in public schools"
and "shifting policies." Every time they
mention equality (racial, sexual, etc.)
they add the caveat, "special privileges
for none." On abortion they use the
troubling threesome: "Safe, legal, rare."
And instead of talking about welfare re
form, they talk about ending welfare "as
we know it."
Their social polices revolve around a
traditional biblical worldview. "We be
lieve that public policies should rein
force marriage, promote family, de
mand parental responsibility and
discourage out-of-wedlock births," it
says on the DLC Web site. This thinly
veiled anti-gay marriage rhetoric sounds
like it was lifted from a Christian Coali
tion newsletter.
The DLC is also rabidly pro-business,
pro-globalization, anti-environment and
anti-big government. They talk about "ex
panding opportunity, not government;"
they say the government's role is to pro
mote growth in the private sector and that
they believe in "creating wealth, not trans
ferring wealth."
I could not find a single clearly stated
progressive goal on the DLC Web site.
That is why it should be no surprise that
DLC funds are coming from corpora
tions that usually use their money to
further Republican careers, like Philip
Morris, Enron, Pfizer, Citigroup,
DuPont and the ultra-ultra-ultra-ultra
right-wing Koch Industries. In fact, two
Koch executives are a part of the elite
DLC Board of Trustees!
The DLC represents the creation of
what has been called the bipartisan right,
a joining of white corporate America and
those who believe the government
should be in the business of forcing a
Biblical moral system on the country. In
the eyes of those with power and money,
it matters little whether Lieberman or
Bush is president. They stand for the
same ideals — as Jon Stewart said on
"The Daily Show," Lieberman is the can
didate for those who like Bush but feel
he isn't Jewish enough.
Greens, liberal Democrats, libertarian
leaning Republicans and Independents
are forced out of the bipartisan right's
agenda. The New Democrats are count
ing on minorities, women and unionists
— the traditional democratic core — to
be unwilling to leave the party, even if it
means voting against their conscience. It
is a gamble that, unfortunately, I think
the DLC will win.
It remains to be seen whether Howard
Dean and Richard Gephardt, the so
called Real Democrats, can muster up a
strong voice against the DLC. So far, I
am not impressed. Gephardt ran in
1988 and lost to Michael Dukakis for
crying out loud. And Dean's politicking
leaves me less than satisfied: He is for
gun control, but only in the context of
states' rights; he is for civil unions, but
against gay marriage. His rhetoric about
the Iraqi war is strong, yet he has never
had to back it up in Congress. Further
more, he is an awkward man with a
creepy smile who just does not strike me
as presidential material.
Then again, in the post-Dubya world,
not being presidential material might be
exactly the magic Dean needs to win next
November.
Contact the columnist
at davidjagemauth@dailyemerald.com.
His opinions do not necessarily
represent those of the Emerald.