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I guess what got lost in this anti-bush post is that he is actually right! Colleges are well within their rights to have legacies, but I do not think they should.

I once wrote an article when I was at Amherst College urging all of those who were potential affirmative action cases for graduate schools to omit those from their applications, so they could get into schools based on their own merit (I, for one, omited my country of birth from law school applications) (you can see that article here http://halogen.note.amherst.edu/~astudent/2002-2003/issue18/opinion/02.html).

During a trip to a confrence, I also extended that challenge to some of my fellow conservatives who were potential legacies- sadly, none of them took up the challenge. I tried to explain to them how taking advantage of affirmative action for legacies while opposing it for minorities was hypocritical, but they did not listen. Oh well.

Nevermind that he has a very good point, let the Bush bashing resume.

Misha,

For once I actually do agree with W. However, it seems a bit disingenuous seeing as pretty much everywhere he’s gotten is due to “legacy” connections. It was OK for him to get the advantages of wealth and connections, but others shouldn’t.

Anyone else confused? Bush is now for AA but against Legacy Points, since when, this morning? Bush said, “I support college affirmatively taking action to get more minorities in their school,” Isn’t that Affirmative Action Mr. Bush? Aren’t you supposed to be opposed to that? You were in the Michigan case where you announced support for the college students bring suit against the college for using Affirmative Action to admit more minority students. Now you are for it Mr. Bush. Isn’t that flip-flopping? Yes, I do believe that is what they (Republicans) call it. And oh yes pandering, let us not forget that!

Man.

If there weren’t so many troubling things going on right now, I’d almost enjoy this presidency for nothing other than the humor. Unfortunately, it’s not a laughing matter.

Actually, E.M., the Bush administration has always supported some form of affirmative action consistently. This just goes to prove what I keep saying here- the Bush administration is nowhere near as conservative as the people on the left want to think, or as the people on the right would hope.

Bush is a “compassionate conservative” of the worst kind, which is exactly why he wont be getting my vote. He refused to take a principled stand on affirmative action, campaign finance reform, elligal immigration, medicare, social security, the deficit. He is moderate on all of these issues- and downright leftist on some. This is why I chuckle every time someone calls this administration far right wing on domestic issues.

This is right up there with steroid use among athletes on the list of America’s highest Presidential-level priorities.

Speaking of steroid use among athletes, anyone notice the enormous number of (American!) athlete steroid scandals leading up to the Olympics? It’s pretty humiliating. I actually kinda wished Bush’s strange focus on the problem would at least lead to a kind of modest but easy win for America. So much for the bully pulpit.

-Cf

I’m gonna give this one to Dubya - but I think I give an even bigger hand to the unnamed person who asked the question. The affirmative action of the rich is something not too many people ever even mention.

Misha—

Really, what kind of AA would that be? Perhaps I missed that memo!

Misha wrote:

the Bush administration is nowhere near as conservative as the people on the left want to think, or as the people on the right would hope.

E.M. I BELIEVE that in their amicus brief to the supreme court on the Michigan cases, the white house took a middle position on affirmative action (race ok as a factor, but not as part of an exact mathematical system). Again, if I recall correctly, the supreme court’s decision (striking out one AA system but not the other) was very much in line with what the white house’s amicus brief urged.

I remember how this played out during the 2000 campaign, when Gore-partisans tried to make an issue of Bush’s legacy admission to Yale and then it came out that Bush’s SAT scores were actually higher than Gore’s, who himself got into Harvard on a legacy.

At the time, Gore was the son of a famous US Senator who owned half of Tennessee and Bush was the son of an obscure Texas congressman engaged in a dicey and most unprofitable bunch of businesses.

So anyway, I wonder if there are any links out there supporting the notion that Bush entered Yale on a legacy instead of academic merit. I’m willing to admit it if it’s shown to be true, but I do know how these things work (that many things, especially in reference to Bush, are just repeated for partisan gain as if they were true and then turn out not to be).

Though it doesn’t ultimately effect who I support, I was surprised to learn that the Bush family is actually much poorer than either Kerry or Edwards (so much for the claim that Bush favors the rich in order to get richer himself).

Kerry is the son of wealth and privilege, born with a silver spoon firmly implanted…. in his mouth, and somebody who could buy Bush several times over, so did he join our President among the Yale student body on the sole basis of his obvious (to you guys) intellectual strengths?

So let’s have some proof if there is any, Democratic warriors! I’m just curious.

> then it came out that Bush’s SAT scores
> were actually higher than Gore’s

Gore: 1355
Bush: 1206

Source.

-Cf

For what it’s worth, I actually don’t think SAT scores mean much. I just wanted to correct Martin’s facts again.

-Cf

It looks like you’re right about the scores—I must have been thinking of somebody else. On second thought, I think it may have been Bill Bradley I heard he had higher scores than. But now I’m not sure.

I agree it doesn’t matter—it’s not the kind of thing Republicans usually brag about, their grades, test scores, or medals from foreign wars, because they prefer to win on the issues and real experience in government instead of ancient history. Memo to Kerry.

I probably just assumed that Bush had higher scores because he’s obviously so much more intelligent than Gore. Oh well.

“…because they prefer to win on the issues.”

What issues does Bush plan to win on? Homosexual hatred? Tax cuts for Bill Gates? Phony terrorist alerts?

He’s not going to win on the economy, health care, or education, that’s for sure.

because they prefer to win on the issues

Haha! Martin, I’d love to see Bush run on issues: a net job loss, record breaking deficits, an unnecessary war (Iraq), an unfinished war (Afghanistan), an unstable economy, four million more people without health care insurance, no plan for dealing with a looming Social Security crisis, a weak dollar, lack of action on basic homeland security issues, lack of serious commitment on vital foreign policy issues (China/Taiwan, Israel/Palestine, and North Korea), an energy policy that guarantees thralldom to Middle Eastern dictators, inability to unite our allies against terrorists, inability to unite Americans, etc…

To be fair, Bush is campaigning on the economy right now - and looking pretty darned silly.

I hope he’ll start talking about homeland security next. :)

The Bush Administration and his neocon co-horts that have hijacked the Republican Party remind me of a kid who, when he finally makes it into the tree house, tries to pull up the ladder behind him so nobody else can climb up. Bush doesn’t care about legacy admissions because he and his children have already benefitted from it and he could care less about anyone else. It is this same philosophy that has caused the Bushies to want to eliminate all congreesional rules that allow minority parties to have a voice now that the Republicans are no longer a minority. Now that Bush is President the voters are the enemy and he will continue to do everything in his power to stifle their voice. It is a sad but common theme with this administration. I wish we have the old Republican Party back. Remember them? The actual conservatives.

Personally, I could go either way on legacy. I went to junior college and graduated, then I went to a university and graduated. My grades in high school were horrible I graduated 137th out of 148th. Does that make me an idiot. I joined the Navy after high school and when I got out, I went straight to Junior college. I wasn’t ready for a four year college. I took the remedial, no credit classes for my first semester and took summer courses to get caught up. I graduated with a 3.8 and trasferred to the other school. I graduated from there with a 3.7 GPA and a BS. I wouldn’t have wanted a legacy program to put me through a top notch school. I wouldn’t have been able to handle it, my public school education was worthless to me.

On national security, we haven’t had a domestic terrorist attack since the anthrax scare. I don’t think homeland security is lagging at all. there may be holes in it but for the most part, I’m not afraid to fly, I’m not afraid to go into work (my company suffered huge losses in WTC) and I’m not afraid to go to the polls in November. Call our current homeland security what you want but your argument would hold much more water if you looked at the results.

ad hominem, mind providing a real name and the names of the colleges so we can verify this information? Otherwise, your comment is a useless read, likely from another one of those who needs to lie, twist facts, or distort truth in order to try to make a case for their side. Lots of that going around these days, and without a real name and factual data, there is just no way to tell, is there?

Parents need more kid safe web sites! We cant let our kids surf the web without
being directed to some inappropriate site. Dont believe me? Do a search on
Pocahontas and watch how many inappropriate sites come up. Even major kids
search engines only block certain words, there are ways around that. The only one I
have found so far was at http://www.netsx.org , I dont know about most parents
but we dont have time to monitor our kids every second when they want to go on
the computer. Anyway rant off.

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