According to the weekly alternative Pittsburgh City Paper, Specter held a breakfast fundraiser at Oakland’s Concordia Club on Feb. 22 with a group of about 60 Jewish donors, mostly registered Democrats. The senator pointed out to the crowd that they still had time to register as Republicans, and then change their registration back to the Democratic party after the GOP primary on April 27.
What motiviation would these people have to do this beyond trying to have the weakest Republican candidate, given that even Specter expects to switch back to voting Democratic Party? What does that say about Specter’s view of himself and his candidacy? Please keep your essays to under 1500 words.
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before the Spanish election, Bush was “acting unilaterally” with regards to Iraq. […] Fast forward to this present week. Spain is now perceived as an “important ally” of the US “coalition” — now that its population tossed out the party that joined Bush’s coalition:
Well, at least Big Media now admits that there is a Coalition to exit from. That’s one step on the path to recovery from Reality Dysfunction.
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This year, when the Emory College Republicans sought funding to bring Horowitz to campus again, funding was denied. […]
What happened next is little short of astonishing. [Assistant Dean of Campus Life Vera] Rorie received a hostile email from one S. Siles, sent from an aol.com email address. The email was a brutally pointed reminder to Rorie that the internet makes it possible for her actions and words as an administrator to be judged by the world. Quoting her confused comments about free speech and academic freedom, the email condemns Rorie as a censor and a fool:
Here’s some free speech: you, madam, are incompetent and a buffoon. The internet is making it more difficult for people like you to hide behind the walls of academia. I also would like to remind you that internet search engines record these articles instantly and forever for posterity to see.
That’s not the astonishing part (as any blogger knows, having a public presence, however small, attracts its share of hate mail). The astonishing part is Rorie’s response, which is recorded on the Emory College Republicans’ web site. […] when she got the email quoted above, she withdrew her offer [to discuss the Horowitz talk] in an email that effectively blamed them for the fact that S. Siles felt compelled to give her an electronic piece of his mind.
My office had offered to assist the College Republicans in planning an event that would bring a conservative speaker of your choice to campus. In light of the attached email and link it is clear that you are not interested in practing [sic] community. The information you provided to outsiders is the source of the enclosed personal attacts [sic] on me. I am rescinding the offer to meet.I will not participate in email name calling or personal assaults.
As noted in the original source, Rorie clearly considered accurate quoting of her statements to “outsiders” to be out of bounds for the academic world. It reminds me of Daniel Pipes’ Campus Watch, which was claimed to have smeared professors by citing their published papers. Sadly for the professoriate, it’s not a cozy little world anymore.