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Wenesday, August 18, 2004
Oregon Daily Emerald
COMMENTARY
Editor in Chief:
Jared Paben
Managing Editor:
Travis Willse
EDITORIAI
Bush slights voters
with closed-door
rally in Portland
To many, President Bush already smells like an elitist, and Fri
da/ s dosed-door rally in Beaverton didn't dispel that image.
Bush and Democratic-party candidate John Kerry both
spoke in Portland on Friday, making it easy to draw compar
isons between the two candidates and their campaigns. That
is, if you could have gotten in to see Bush's.
Instead of opening his rally to all interested Oregonians,
many of whom were curious to see a president who rarely vis
its this state, Bush decided to reward his campaign volunteers
by granting them admission to his tickets-only event. A few
hundred people were at his event, but most were volunteers
and others who have supported Bush's re-election campaign.
Kerry, on the other hand, opened his event to all people, draw
ing tens of thousands to Waterfront Park in Portland. Kerry's cam
paign required tickets for seats closer to the candidate, but anybody
who got on his Web site and gave a name, address and phone
number or e-mail address could get up to four tickets for free
Bush played it safe. Portland has a history of large protests in
Bush's honor, and by delivering his speech to GOP volunteers
and invited small-business people he was safe from harm to
himself and his image. By holding his rally in a relatively new
high school in a relatively well-to-do suburban neighborhood
that's not conducive to massive protests, Bush managed to
avoid the tear gas, rubber bullets and pepper spray that often
accompany his not-so-frequent visits to Portland.
But, his closed-door rally tells Oregonians — residents of a
swing state that could prove critical this November — that he
doesn't care enough about them to bless them with his presence
or share his reflection on the past four years with them personally.
Maybe even worse, Bush allowed Kerry to score points with
a massive rally that some said was the most well-attended po
litical rally in Portland in at least a decade and at a small front
porch rally in a Springfield neighborhood.
Moreover, on Thursday Kerry held an open-to-anybody ral
ly in Central Point in southern Oregon, a region not well
known for its good-natured support of the Democratic Party.
Kerry braved the potential for protests, but Bush wouldn't. Ac
tions speak louder than speeches, and Friday's actions make
Kerry look like he was here for everybody.
Nothing is free, and taking the easy road might have left
those standing outside Bush's rally feeling neglected. Not that
there was more than a handful outside, anyway. We're guess
ing those politically minded Portlanders decided to attend
Kerry's event, instead.
EDITORIAL BOARD
Jared Paben Travis Willse
Editor in Chief Managing Editor
Erik R. Bishoff
Online & Photo Editor
ONLINE POLL
THIS WEEK'S POLE RESULTS
What role should presidential and vice presiden
tial significant others play? (21 votes)
1. They're not elected, but they should act as
goodwill emissaries - 48 percent
2. They should make or influence policy - 24 percent
3. They should be armpieces; they're there to
decorate the White and Blair houses for the holi
days- 19 percent
4. They should support their significant others'
politics -10 percent
NEXT WEEK S QUESTION
What’s the best thing to do with a law • Defend the accused
degree? Visit www.dailyemerald.com . Government work
to v0*e- • Patent or copyright law
• Corporate law • Pro bono work
r \
Hey, Honey, 1
looks like I’m
running for
mayor again.
f Run
^Jim
Hi*n!
Aaron Sullivan Illustrator
Where are the WOtCMOgS ?
In case any of you have any misconcep
tions about my political viewpoint, let me
get this out in the open so you can all
plaster me with whatever the hell B.S.
ideological label you happen to come up
with: I think George W. Bush has no right
to be in charge of this country. This as
sessment has nothing to do with his po
litical views or even his personality, both
of which appeal to me about as much as
a getting slapped in the face with opos
sum carcass. It's a simple matter of what
is actually required to become president
of this country: votes.
The Republican Party cheated in Flori
da in 2000. Republicans cheated boldly
and with great vigor and when somebody
tried to call them on it, they whined like a
pack of spoiled children. Sorry, but it's
true. It's the old Joe Stalin adage: It does
n't matter who gets the votes, it's who
counts them. Florida was governed by
Bush's brother and the secretary of state
(who runs the election process) was the
head of Bush's Florida election campaign.
Thousands of voters found themselves
disenfranchised, many of them put on
lists that identified them as felons with
out the right to vote simply because their
names were similar to someone who had
committed a felony. That a dispropor
tionate number of these disenfranchised
voters were black is not so much a matter
of racism as it was demographics: African
Americans vote more often for Democ
rats than Republicans. But it sucks no
matter what you call it.
It was a travesty of justice and one
of the worst cases of voter fraud in Amer
ican history, yet it got hardly any press
and hardly any protest. I predict it's
going to happen again this year, and
once again the will of the American
RYAN NYBURG
BUDGET RACK
people will be subjugated by the greedy
and the corrupt.
I know this sounds like a roundabout
way of getting to this subject, but what I
find particularly interesting (and infuri
ating) is the role news media played —
or didn't play, as the case may be —
through this entire debacle. Major news
sources across the country were hardly
more than play-by-play color commen
tators, rather than the watchdogs they
were supposed to be. What most people
don't seem to grasp is that we do not suf
fer from a liberal media or a conservative
media, just a lazy media more content to
get news from each other than actually
go out and find it.
Take the war in Iraq. Reporters go to
report on that war while "embedded"
into military units. The idea is to give re
porters a closer view of military opera
tions, but the flip side is that the re
porters see only what the military wants
them to see, and you end up with a lot of
rah-rah cheerleading instead of clumsy
things like facts and civilian body counts
because the journalists don't want to lose
the privilege of being force-fed the army's
take on the whole operation.
Even worse is the Washington news
corps, those select few in the
journalism field who are allowed
to be mouthpieces for the White House.
So you end up not hearing about
some of the news stories that might actu
ally make people think that the govern
ment is not doing such a good job. A few,
like the war in Iraq and the screwed-up
economy, are hard to ignore, but some of
the little things tend to get skipped over.
Like when anyone attending a rally in
New Mexico held by Dick Cheney had to
sign a loyalty oath in order to see their
vice president (Wyoming's Casper Star
Tribune, July 30), or like when the Re
publican party in Arizona insisted on
knowing the race of a reporter assigned
to a separate Cheney rally (Arizona Daily
Star, July 31). You know what Bush's next
big thing is? Mental health screenings for
all Americans (Intervention Magazine,
August 8), under "The New Freedom Ini
tiative". Guess who benefits from having
all Americans screened for mental ill
nesses? You don't have to be on meds
to figure it out. A similar program goes*
on in Texas, and has come under fire
when it was discovered that influential
state officials were taking kickbacks from
drug companies.
I don't mean to diss on the Republi
cans so much, but they just happen
to been in charge at the moment (not
that you could tell from the amount
of complaining you hear from the con
servative press). Whoever is in charge
tends to abuse their power to an extent,
and I think what we have here is a partic
ularly bad president who happens to
be a conservative. I'd act the same way over
a morally deficient liberal if I had
the chance. But I can only work with
what I've got.
ryanrtyburg@dailyemerald.com
Oregon Daily Emerald m b«. F„n,n. m«,««_
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