University Press (Beaumont, Tex.), Vol. 65, No. 16, Ed. 1 Friday, November 4, 1988 Page: 3 of 8
eight pages : ill. ; page 23 x 14 in.View a full description of this newspaper.
- Highlighting
- Highlighting On/Off
- Color:
- Adjust Image
- Rotate Left
- Rotate Right
- Brightness, Contrast, etc. (Experimental)
- Cropping Tool
- Download Sizes
- Preview all sizes/dimensions or...
- Download Thumbnail
- Download Small
- Download Medium
- Download Large
- High Resolution Files
- IIIF Image JSON
- IIIF Image URL
- Accessibility
- View Extracted Text
Extracted Text
The following text was automatically extracted from the image on this page using optical character recognition software:
Jl
UNIVERSITY PRESS November 4,1988*3
~^fair-
Comment
A
Root merits
careful study
v* Candidate — the first six
k letters spell candid.
One of the definitions of
A'
candid is to be without bias,
* predjudice or malice.
** In a campaign filled with in-
< suits, unsubstantial one-
-liners and accusations, this
definition is apparently not
known to presidential
" packagers.
4 But who can blame them?
wln 1984, Democratic nominee
Waiter Mondale tried the
honest approach concerning
*" raising taxes, but the voting
4 public believed that things
fiwere going to get better
without either spending
money or cutting social pro-
” grams.
4 We want to know who is go-
4s ing to do what to make our
i lives better.
Your neighbor has probably
v lived the past week without
“saying the pledge of
*i allegiance and suffered no
„ noticeable drop in his stan-
dard of living.
He’s worried about how
** he’s going to pay for health
* care and how he’s going to af-
* ford day care for his children.
This leads into the next
definition of candid: disposed
" to criticize severely,
k This definition, obviously,
J has been memorized.
, Everybody, from former
campaign workers and vice
presidential running mates to
the presidential nominees
themselves, has engaged in
some form of mudslinging.
For a country that elects a
president based on his ap-
pearance, neither candidate
has made a presidential
showing.
Also, both have been can-
did when you consider the
definition that relates to
photography and subjects
that act spontaneously and
naturally.
Dukakis and Bush work
hard to look spontaneous and
natural.
Dukakis does a better job
than Bush of suggesting the
fourth definition — sincere
honesty' and an absence of
deception — but perhaps that
is because of his much-
criticized and subtle
“packaging-of-the-president”
ads.
Bush’s political ads leave
no chance for any doubt
about the message being put
across.
Candid applies to these
candidates only in negative
terms.
People are tired of pointing
fingers and of doom-and-
gloom prophecy.
We are ready for spirit, en-
thusiasm and a little fair play.
1992 may be our chance.
Candidates prove
-good blunderers
t* Pundits and anchors and
» polls, oh my!
The Nov. 8 election date
»>
grows ever closer, and we are
* indeed impressed by the abili-
ty of our fellow media to
« predict who is going to win.
„ Will it be Bush? NBC, CBS,
ABS, CNN, The Washington
Post, The New York Times,
* The Wall Street Journal and
* USA Today all say yes this
«• week.
, A month ago, the networks
had Michael Dukakis ahead
by a wide margin.
**. Or was that Lloyd Bentsen?
* Maybe it was David Letter-
* man.
Which brings us to the
awarding of the 1988 Silver
Foot in Mouth award.
* Indeed, this has been an
* election year of folly, political
* blundering, and abounding
bumbles.
Here are just a few:
* George Bush spoke of “a
* thousand pints of Lite” — or
« maybe that wasn’t quite the
A way it went.
Bush also mistook Sept. 7
' as Pearl Harbor Day.
A; Dukakis hasn’t been above
.■ the slips of the tongue either.
He has been a ‘‘card-
carrying member of the
ACLU,” a man intent that the
race is about “competence,
not ideology” and genuinely
interested in making sure he
saw eye to eye with George
Bush at the debates —- which
necessitated a riser for him to
stand on.
But the political gaffer of
them all has to be Bush's run-
ning mate Sen. Dan Quayle.
Here is a man who is “not
of this century.” Which raises
the question: Will we have to
go back in time to vote for
him?
“We understand the impor-
tance of having the bondage
between parent and child,”
Quayle said. This is indeed an
interesting scenario.
The senator has even
quoted Indiana basketball
coach Bobby Knight about
politics. See if you can figure
it out: “Bobby Knight told me,
‘There is nothing that a good
defense cannot beat a better
offense.’ ”
Confusing, indeed, but
enough to carry either Bush
or Dukakis into the White
House Jan. 20.
Good luck, America.
A
k
►
4.
¥■
A
A
ft
h
A
k
k:
4
h
A,
UNIVERSITY PRESS
Editor.........................Evelyn Hawn
Associate Editor..............Bryan Murley
Managing Editor............Marlene Auster
Sports Editor...................David Smith
Copy Editor...................Cynthia Hicks
Photo Editor...................Keith Watson
Wire Editor....................Craig Taylor
Photographers____Brent Guidry, Ed McLean
Jose Rodriguez
Staff Writers.....................Jay Casey,
Gloria Douglas, Cathy Faughnan,
Bill Gieseke, Susan Lewis,
Maxsane Mitchell, Ken Pullig,
Lorraine Schiffman, Brad Wills
Assistant Sports Editor .Dennis Meloncon
Sports Writers ......Jennifer DeMontmollin,
Knetta Lilly, Sharon Perkins,
Brian Richardson, Leisa Riley
Entertainment Writers........Kevin Brown,
Debra Goetschius, Will Hughes
Allyson Saunders,
Brent Snyder, James Wood
Cartoonist..................Seames O’Grady
Advertising Representative......Alan Leger
Advertising Assistant.......Antionette Kelly
Production Assistant.........Danny Bledsoe
Circulation Manager.............Tom Larsh
Office Assistants . .Nina Nguyen, Huyen Tran
Marketing Coordinator
Elaine Butler
Production Manager
Gloria Post
Assistant to the
Director of Student Publications
Louise Wood
Director of Student Publications
Howard Perkins
Publisher
Student Publications Board
Joseph Kavanaugh, Chairman
The University Press is the official student
newspaper of Lamar University, and is
published every Wednesday and Friday dur-
ing long semesters, excluding holidays and
Wednesdays immediately following holidays.
Offices are located at P.O. Box 10065, 200
Setzer Student Center, University Station,
Beaumont, Texas 77710.
Opinions expressed in editorials and col-
umns are those of the student management of
the newspaper. These opinions are not
necessarily those of the university administra-
tion.
MT4 @im-ihepa*App
Racism complaints ring true, but late
Charges of racism against George
Bush’s campaign might have sound-
ed a little more genuine if the
Michael Dukakis camp had not
waited until the last two weeks of the
campaign to make them.
The complaint, initiated by Jesse
Jackson and backed up by Sen.
Lloyd Bentsen and eventually
Dukakis himself, has to do with the
way we have been seeing a lot of
Willie Horton Jr., a black convicted
murderer who raped a white
Maryland woman and slashed her
fiance after escaping from a
Massachusetts prison furlough pro-
gram.
In charging that Dukakis is soft on
crime, Horton has become a favorite
Bush theme in fliers, speeches and
television commercials.
Lee Atwater, Bush’s campaign
manager, warned us last summer.
“The Horton case is one of those gut
issues that are value issues,” he
said, “particularly in the South, and
if we hammer at these over and
over, we are going to win.”
Perhaps. But it is important to
note, as the Dukakis camp does, that
while Ronald Reagan was governor
of California, a couple of fellows
escaped from a similar program in
that state and killed two people. And
a man murdered a minister’s wife
after escaping from a halfway house
supported by Bush in his hometown
of Houston. Yet another thug
escaped from the federal govern-
ment’s liberal furlough program and
killed a young mother of two.
Show us your thug, and we’ll
match you thug for thug, says the
Dukakis camp.
So why does the Bush camp con-
tinue to use the Horton case at all?
Perhaps because it allows Bush’s
supporters to flash the face of a fear-
some black man into people’s homes
every night?
Perhaps so they can send a mental
message to Bush’s natural consti-
tuency, which is almost all white,
that Dukakis is about to unleash
black criminals with wild, woolly
hair to assault their daughters and
pummel their sons?
A little knowledge of history is im-
portant here. Ever since Barry
Goldwater opposed civil rights
legislation on ideological grounds in
his 1964 bid for the presidency, the
Republican Party has benefited
from an influx of whites. Some were
racists. Others merely resented the
economic, social and political ad-
vances blacks were making — which
I suppose makes them racists, too, if
a more genteel version.
Anyway, Southern states that had
not voted Republican since the Civil
War suddenly voted for Goldwater
and, except for Jimmy Carter’s first
campaign in 1976 , have not put their
electoral votes behind a national
Democrat since.
The same is true of white urban
ethnics in the North who never felt
any guilt about job, school and hous-
ing segregation (“My family owned
no slaves,” is the popular response)
even though their quality of life
benefited immensely from it, at
black expense.
When emerging black political in-
fluence led to the passage of school,
housing and employment desegrega-
tion laws, white ethnics joined their
new Southern partners in the
backlash coalition, fueled by such
early leaders as George Wallace,
Richard Nixon and Reagan, all of
whom took the racially coded
language of Goldwater (“states’
rights”) and added new codes of
their own (“crime in the streets,”
“law and order,” “welfare queens”)
that translated into one message in
the minds of many: I’Q keep the
blacks in their place.
Against that background, the Bush
camp sounds as disingenuous as
Louis Renault, the wily police chief
in the movie “Casablanca,” when he
said he was “Shocked! Shocked! ” to
know that gambling was going on in
his thoroughly corrupt jurisdiction.
After all, neither Bush nor his run-
ning mate, Sen. Dan Quayle, has
made any visible effort to visit black
areas or pursue black votes since
August, when Bush vowed to a group
of well-to-do black supporters that
he would take no constituency for
granted.
But the Republicans do not stand
alone when it comes to using and
abusing black voters and taking
them for granted. Dukakis and other
white candidates steered
themselves around black
neighborhoods during the primaries,
preferring to pursue the mother lode
of votes to be found among wayward
Reagan Democrats.
Black interests were left to be
negotiated pretty much through one
man, Jesse Jackson.
Now that polls show Dukakis los-
ing not only the votes of Reagan
Democrats but also the enthusiasm
of Jackson blacks, Dukakis’ racism
charge sounds like a desperation
play in the final minutes of the
game. Just as Bush can arouse con-
servatives by waving Old Glory,
Dukakis can arouse blacks, it is
reasoned, by waving the red flag of
racism.
Bush tried to turn the racism
charge against Dukakis by noting
that the Democrats are running an
ad about the murderer who walked
away from the halfway house sup-
ported by Bush. He happened to be
Hispanic. Is that a racist move
against Hispanics? Bush asked.
No, it’s just a defensive move. Us-
ing mud to fight mud is fair, even if
neither side comes out of this one
clean.
Reagan holds strange press conferences
By Helen Thomas
United Press International
Washington — President Reagan
answered a few shouted questions
after a bill-signing recently. Later,
White House spokesman Marlin
Fitzwater popped into the press
room with a big smile and told
reporters: “That was your 49th news
conference.” Reagan has not held a
real news conference since last June
at the Totonto summit.
White House reporters are
wondering whether the situation will
improve in the future, whoever is the
next president. Presidential can-
didates Michael Dukakis and
George Bush have avoided news
conferences in their final weeks of
campaigning. But they have em-
braced television interviews, ignor-
ing reporters who cover them day
after day.
• • •
Sheila Tate, Bush’s campaign
press secretary, is reported to have
the inside track to be Bush’s White
House press secretary if he wins the
election. Tate did a yeoman’s job
previously as Nancy Reagan’s press
secretary. But in that period, 1981 to
1984, she had access to her boss.
The word from reporters following
the Bush campaign is that Tate has
been kept out of the loop by cam-
paign manager Jim Baker and the
other top male aides in the Bush
political hierarchy.
Tate took over when Peter Teely,
Bush’s longtime press secretary,
took a more behind-the-scenes job in
the campaign. Teely reportedly
wants back in the high profile job of
press secretary at the White House if
Bush wins.
• • •
President Reagan will leave office
convinced there was no Iran-Contra
scandal, that he did not swap arms
for hostages, and if there was a scan-
dal, it was all the media’s doing.
After the nightmare of the revela-
tions that toppled the national
security staff and chief of staff
Donald Regan, Reagan still main-
tains that he did not deal secretly
with Iran to obtain the release of the
American hostages in Lebanon,
although hundreds of pages of
testimony in the Tower Commission
report and the congressional in-
vestigation say otherwise.
Such is Reagan’s latest statement
on the subject that came in response
to questions when the Islamic Jihad
put out a videotape of hostage Terry
Anderson appealing for Reagan or
Bush to help get the hostages releas-
ed.
Reagan insisted there were no
negotiations with Iran “but with per-
ple who were looking forward to a
day when there could be a decent
government in Iran ... and it had to
be covert or they would have been
executed instantly.”
UP too liberal
Editor,
This letter is in regard to the opi-
nions expressed by the writers and
staff of the University Press.
Letters to the editor
It is evident that some of the staff
are biased toward the Democratic
Party. It is my understanding that
Bryan Murley, the associate editor,
and others on the University Press
staff, are liberal Democrats. This
clearly shows up on a regular basis
in the paper. It is apparent they are
using their exclusive access to the
campus media to try and sway the
Lamar University voters. The
University Press writers speak of
the “dirt” being thrown in the
presidential campaign, yet they suc-
cumb to the same tactics when try-
ing to disgrace the Republican Par-
ty. Many Lamar students would ap-
preciate the UP reporting just the
facts in an unbiased manner. They
then will be able to make their own
decisions.
George Dodson
Beaumont senior
Upcoming Pages
Here’s what’s next.
Search Inside
This issue can be searched. Note: Results may vary based on the legibility of text within the document.
Matching Search Results
View eight places within this issue that match your search.Tools / Downloads
Get a copy of this page or view the extracted text.
Citing and Sharing
Basic information for referencing this web page. We also provide extended guidance on usage rights, references, copying or embedding.
Reference the current page of this Newspaper.
Hawn, Evelyn. University Press (Beaumont, Tex.), Vol. 65, No. 16, Ed. 1 Friday, November 4, 1988, newspaper, November 4, 1988; Beaumont, Texas. (https://texashistory.unt.edu/ark:/67531/metapth499626/m1/3/?q=Lamar+University: accessed May 29, 2024), University of North Texas Libraries, The Portal to Texas History, https://texashistory.unt.edu; crediting Lamar University.