Spring Break
12/3 Column: Andrew Malcolm and Untrustworthy Partisan Rhetoric
James Coan '09, Publisher
Issue date: 11/3/08 Section: Opinion
When I was a sophomore, I was in a seminar with College Republicans president Andrew Malcolm '09. I found him to be intelligent, and his views seemed quite balanced. He described himself as a conservative, but if it weren't for this description of himself, I would have had trouble detecting his political leanings.
Yet many of his quotes in the Daily Princetonian since the beginning of the year belie the thoughtful person I thought I knew. I believed Andrew Malcolm significantly hurt his credibility during the election, and he continues to make very questionable statements.
In his most recent quote in the December 1 Prince article "Group Urges University Trustees to Oppose Prop. 8," I was surprised that he criticized WWS for sending out an e-mail informing students of the initial meeting of the Equality Action Network (EAN). Andrew claimed, ""The Woodrow Wilson School has no business taking stands on partisan or political issues like this."
However, WWS made no stand at all about the EAN. As a WWS major, I know that WWS will send out any e-mail informing students that they can go to meetings on any relevant political topic, and they would send out information about a College Republicans event. The only way WWS would block an e-mail is if it were completely insensitive or inflammatory, but if some conservatives wanted to organize an event to "protect the institution of marriage," WWS would have no problem with it; if the language were on the order of "let's prevent sodomistic gays who defile nature from getting married so they don't harm our young," then it might be different. But I know nobody on campus would write the latter, so this is not an issue.
I'm not sure what point Andrew was trying to make by attacking WWS in this manner. At least during the campaign I knew he was trying to get McCain elected. But I believe his tactics of passionately defending Sarah Palin without identifying any of her flaws and boldly claiming that Obama would destroy the economy amounted to intellectual dishonesty. The statements too easily overlooked contradictory information and ultimately made his statements untrustworthy.
Yet many of his quotes in the Daily Princetonian since the beginning of the year belie the thoughtful person I thought I knew. I believed Andrew Malcolm significantly hurt his credibility during the election, and he continues to make very questionable statements.
In his most recent quote in the December 1 Prince article "Group Urges University Trustees to Oppose Prop. 8," I was surprised that he criticized WWS for sending out an e-mail informing students of the initial meeting of the Equality Action Network (EAN). Andrew claimed, ""The Woodrow Wilson School has no business taking stands on partisan or political issues like this."
However, WWS made no stand at all about the EAN. As a WWS major, I know that WWS will send out any e-mail informing students that they can go to meetings on any relevant political topic, and they would send out information about a College Republicans event. The only way WWS would block an e-mail is if it were completely insensitive or inflammatory, but if some conservatives wanted to organize an event to "protect the institution of marriage," WWS would have no problem with it; if the language were on the order of "let's prevent sodomistic gays who defile nature from getting married so they don't harm our young," then it might be different. But I know nobody on campus would write the latter, so this is not an issue.
I'm not sure what point Andrew was trying to make by attacking WWS in this manner. At least during the campaign I knew he was trying to get McCain elected. But I believe his tactics of passionately defending Sarah Palin without identifying any of her flaws and boldly claiming that Obama would destroy the economy amounted to intellectual dishonesty. The statements too easily overlooked contradictory information and ultimately made his statements untrustworthy.
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Interested reader
posted 12/03/08 @ 1:04 PM EST
I wonder what Andrew thinks about the new Coalition for Intellectual Liberty ballot initiative. It was strange not having a quote from him in today's Prince article. (Continued…)
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