The Campus Report

This week, C.I. twice noted the mood on campuses. Since you've got a number of college students (Ty, Dona, Jim, Jess, Ava, Wally, and Mike) working on each edition, Kat visiting one campus to speak to students and C.I. going all over the country, we think we can offer a little more insight than gas bags from NPR or the Sunday chat & chews.

What's the mood of the country? The "mood"? Have you mistaken us for Adam Nagourney? We're a diverse nation and that's reflected on campuses.

You do have two poles, one on the right, one of the left. In the middle, you have students who don't generally participate in politics for a number of reasons including, for some, lack of time to follow the twists and turns of the nation.

From the right, those of us who are students can recall at least one "Okay I'm worried" moment this week. We've all encountered it as someone who disagrees with us in every class on every issue felt the need to approach and reveal serious concerns about the Bully Boy's warrantless spying.

The Why We Spy spin (nod to Amy Goodman for coining that phrase) must be aimed at the center of the population because it's not going over well with conservative students who've followed this developing story. Some feel that Bully Boy had the right to do what he did but cloaking it in spin weakens his case. Like Bully Boy, they favor a system with less checks and balances. Some have been truly concerned since the use of the NSA to spy on Americans was revealed and had hoped that Bully Boy, when he started talking, would provide some reasoning.

"Conservatives do not back this policy," one conservative student leader stated. "This goes against everything we stand for and is the sort of thing Slick Willie would pull."

Yes, the right still loathes Bill Clinton even though some of them were 12 and 13 when he was last in office. If you're expecting that the converse is true, that those students on the left are cheering Bill Clinton, you're mistaken. Those who even bother to mention him speak of their embarrassment that he fails to speak out against the war and on any number of topics. Is Hillary Clinton his proxy?

If so, she is spoken of. It's not good. She's seen as backing off reproductive rights, she's seen as a war supporter, she's seen as someone who will say and do anything to become president. We're speaking of the way she's viewed here and this isn't from whispered conversations as one person approaches (or, in three cases, where conservatives actually made their statements against Bully Boy's spying to an entire class, and good for them). There's no prompting needed in the New York area, she's topic number one. Around the country, she's a popular topic as well and on the verge of the kind of negatives only Joe Lieberman could possess.

Who is popular? Al Gore. Forget Bully Boy's Why We Spy campaign, the most talked of speech is Al Gore's MLK address. The facts are fuzzy for some students who aren't old enough to remember a great deal about Vice President Al Gore, but they do remember he supported Howard Dean, they do remember he spoke out against the war, there's a vague awareness of his new network, and there's the MLK address.

Will he run in 2008? If the presidential primaries were held today and decided by the students, he'd be the one to win the nomination. We're honestly surprised by the way he's been adopted by so many students. But it goes to the point that people want to see bravery and they want to see leaders who stand up. At this point in time, Al Gore's the one. For most people, he's the only one. That has a lot to do with a mainstream media that ignores the work of people like Barbara Lee and John Conyers. They ignore Gore as well, for the most part, and it's at their own peril. Ask for an example of media bias and the most cited example in recent times is the clampdown, the refusal to cover Al Gore's speech by the mainstream media.

The media? If you're not Democracy Now! the score card's not good. As a student in North Carolina stated, "The only thing I can count on the mainstream for is to make a mockery out of reporting."

Which goes beyond Al Gore. Democratic Senators should know that they are loathed on the left for not immediately advocating a filibuster of Samuel Alito. If it's any comfort, the mainstream media is loathed more.

What's happening on campuses, is that people are realizing that the media didn't do their job. Again. The media failed to explore Samuel Alito. Some can point to strong editorials after the hearings, but before the hearings they did soft coverage failing to examine the nominee's record.

As Senate Dems shrugged and said "Oh well," this became a big topic on campus and has caused the sort of enthusiasm we haven't seen on any issue other than the war. It's approaching the election fever in the lead up to the 2004 elections.

The moods? Wavering support of the Bully Boy by some conservatives due to the NSA warrantless spying. (Again, we've heard some speak against the criminal nature of the program and we've heard some complain about Bully Boy's soft sell/spin.) On the left, strong disappointment in the Democratic Party (intense anger might be more accurate). And those who are apolitical due to temperament or circumstance? That is, after all, what the press focuses on (and the bean counters in both parties), so where are they?

They're coming to the left. They're opening with, "Explain to me how that man [Alito] can be a sure thing for the Court when he's opposed to Roe v. Wade."

Students who were uncomfortable with participating in an anti-war rally months ago are now asking if there's a rally, any rally, coming up. They're wanting to know what they can do.

The mainstream media looks down on "activist journalists" but they've activated a healthy portion of the youth of this country with their superficial reporting on Alito.

The mainstream media that couldn't cover the Downing Street Memos is now all over Oprah Winfrey's book club (front paged on The New York Times Friday). And they wonder why they have less viewers, less readers, and declining faith and trust from Americans?

Democrats may be tempted to see all of this as a win. "Well, our side's rallying! This will be good in 2006!" "Our side"? Maybe if you're Al Gore. If you're one of the weak willed Democrats that can't speak against the war or utter the word "impeachment," you'd probably be better off realizing that you're seen as about as useful as a Greenpeace sticker on a S.U.V.

2006 should be the year of the Easy Win for Democrats. (Electronic voting machine issues set aside.) But 2002 should have been that as well. And it wasn't. It wasn't because Democrats failed to distinguish themselves from Republicans.

"We agree with them on all the topics but here's how we'd handle the situation" was the theme of 2002. That didn't work out too well but somehow a number of people missed that and what we're hearing thus far is a repeat of the losing slogan.

"What does it take for them to stand up?" asked one sophomore, the frustration in his voice clearly evident.

There is real disappointment and anger over the so-called opposition party's lack of opposition to one power grab after another, one lie after another on the part of the Bully Boy.

Students are tired of waiting for leadership that never comes. And they're taking ownership of their power instead of waiting for the Democrats to decide what's easiest to do.

On Tuesday, The New York Times noted this (buried in Eric Lichtblau's "Gonzales Invokes Actions of Other Presidents in Defense of U.S. Spying"):

More than two dozen students in the audience responded by turning their backs on Mr. Gonzales and standing stone-faced before live television cameras for the duration of his half-hour speech. Five protesters in the group donned black hoods and unfurled a banner, quoting Benjamin Franklin, that read, "Those who would sacrifice liberty for security deserve neither."

The same day Democracy Now! covered it with the scope fitting of news:

AG Gonzales' Defense Of U.S. Domestic Spy Program Draws Protests and Criticism from Law Professors, Students
On Tuesday, Attorney General Alberto Gonzales appeared at Georgetown Law School to deliver an address defending the NSA domestic spy programs. During the course of his address, nearly 30 students stood up one-by-one and turned their back on Gonzales in protest. A panel of law professors addressed Gonzales' speech, calling it illegal. We play excerpts of Gonzales' speech and law professor David Cole responding. [includes rush transcript]

And Saturday, Laura Flanders interviewed one of the protesters, James Lyle, on RadioNation with Laura Flanders. Lyle, a second year law student, was part of the group that turned their back on Gonzlaes.

Lyle noted that the protest was put together in less than 24 hours. (Lyle himself found out around five p.m. that Gonzales would be visiting the campus the next morning.) A group of people got together to brainstorm because they realized the visit wasn't for the law school, "it was for the media," a photo-op to get the Georgetown logo behind him to make it look like the law was behind him. Lyle noted that Gonzales was flustered by the protest but continued reading from his prepared text.

Noting that "national security" is repeated over and over in the Why We Spy spin, Lyle compared it to the constant invoking of the mythical WMD in the lead up to the invasion of Iraq.
On campus the reaction to the protest has been "overall" favorable and we're not surprised by that. As Lyle noted, "We're facing a Constitutional crisis . . . Unlmited war powers, unlimited war," and the nation doesn't look like the country we know.

Lyle's remarks reflect one of the moods on campus. It's a growing mood that was strong before but has only grown stronger as Bully Boy's found himself in yet another scandal and as the press has been busy spinning "Sure Thing Alito" since day one.

Lyle noted that there was support on campus for dissent "but the media really doesn't support it." (More information on Lyle's group can be found out Stand Up For The Law.)

On campus the center is pooling/flowing to the left. Though Cokie Roberts wrongly stated the youth had no impact on election 2004 (we'd call her a liar but that would imply that she'd done any research or reading before spouting off in the midst of her bad gas attack), the youth turnout in 2004 was huge. If Democrats wish to benefit from that, they're going to have to learn how to stand up.