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Rice Withdraws from Rutgers Commencement [W:77:155]

re: Rice Withdraws from Rutgers Commencement [W:77]

Honestly, would Rutgers be a good choice? Maybe Liberty Univ or BYU or some other conservative school.
 
re: Rice Withdraws from Rutgers Commencement [W:77]

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There is a topic here and it is not baiting, flaming or trolling. Any deviation from discussion of the thread topic will result in moderator action.
 
Re: Rice Withdraws from Rutgers Commencement [W:77]

Honestly, would Rutgers be a good choice? Maybe Liberty Univ or BYU or some other conservative school.

The school invited her. Honestly, I think people could stand a little more exposure to people and ideas they disagree with. Might learn something.
 
Re: Rice Withdraws from Rutgers Commencement [W:77]

The school invited her. Honestly, I think people could stand a little more exposure to people and ideas they disagree with. Might learn something.


True.

But at the same time the school should not pick someone just to get controversy.
 
Re: Rice Withdraws from Rutgers Commencement [W:77]

its very sad.. Condi is a great person and every American should be proud to have such a wonderful person speak
 
Re: Rice Withdraws from Rutgers Commencement [W:77]

Honestly, would Rutgers be a good choice? Maybe Liberty Univ or BYU or some other conservative school.

I attended Rutgers as a dual history/poli-sci undergrad during the Iraq war and as a graduate student (in a notoriously liberal field of study) immediately following the Iraq war.

During that time, and as an alum, I've attended numerous colloquiua and lectures (Eagelton series and other) related to the Iraq/Afghanistan wars and American foreign policy more generally.

I've been a member of RUSERVS (the Rutgers student veteran organization) since it's inception in the mid 2000s.

Other than a handful of undergrad rallies nothing ever gave me the impression that the Rutgers student body was excessively absorbed in anti war sentiment.

Given the nature of my dual undergrad major, and the courses I took, I expect that if there were an aggressive anti war sentiment among the faculty I would have been exposed to it.

Sure I had professors who were overtly liberal in terms of their views of the war, but I also had professors who were overtly conservative.

Most were somewhere in between, trying to provide instruction based on a balanced view without injecting their personal philosophies into the course material overmuch.

In in-class discussions with other students related to topics of war and peace generally and the GWOT specifically I think the majority were always of an anti war bent (both generally and specifically), and I think that's what you'd expect from a population of service-age young adults who didn't have the balls (my opinion) to man up and serve their country, but I never saw it get to the point of disrespect or combativeness.

The relationship between the faculty and the student body at large with the veteran sub-community was always cordial if not clearly respectful.

The following article (granted, it's from FOX, which I'm not a fan of) expresses the kind of sentiment I'd expect from the Rutgers community:

In a nutshell, it says that an handful of faculty and students created a stink, so she backed out, but the overriding sentiment of the wider Rutgers community was disappointment in her decision to do so:

Rutgers students frustrated after Rice withdraws as commencement speaker | Fox News
 
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Re: Rice Withdraws from Rutgers Commencement [W:77]

Rutgers is an incoming member of the soon-to-be 14-member Big Ten.
As one who lives in the heart of Big Ten country, I consider this to be an embarrassment to the Big 10.
Multi-cultural, non-sexist and free thought are the bedrock of our great universities.

Professor Rice has proven her credentials at Stanford.
As a moderate Democrat, I would have like to hear what she has to say.

As well, what will happen when the 13-member NCAA football committee, which she is a part of, decides on how to run the 2014 playoff system?
Some of the coaches comments have been quite dismissive and misogynistic toward Ms. Rice .
 
Re: Rice Withdraws from Rutgers Commencement [W:77]

True.

But at the same time the school should not pick someone just to get controversy.

Your assuming that was their motive. I think they were looking for a significant public figure to add a unique perspective to past events, and something one would expect graduates would embrace.
 
Re: Rice Withdraws from Rutgers Commencement [W:77]

I attended Rutgers as a dual history/poli-sci undergrad during the Iraq war and as a graduate student (in a notoriously liberal field of study) immediately following the Iraq war.

During that time, and as an alum, I've attended numerous colloquiua and lectures (Eagelton series and other) related to the Iraq/Afghanistan wars and American foreign policy more generally.

I've been a member of RUSERVS (the Rutgers student veteran organization) since it's inception in the mid 2000s.

Other than a handful of undergrad rallies nothing ever gave me the impression that the Rutgers student body was excessively absorbed in anti war sentiment.

Given the nature of my dual undergrad major, and the courses I took, I expect that if there were an aggressive anti war sentiment among the faculty I would have been exposed to it.

Sure I had professors who were overtly liberal in terms of their views of the war, but I also had professors who were overtly conservative.

Most were somewhere in between, trying to provide instruction based on a balanced view without injecting their personal philosophies into the course material overmuch.

In in-class discussions with other students related to topics of war and peace generally and the GWOT specifically I think the majority were always of an anti war bent (both generally and specifically), and I think that's what you'd expect from a population of service-age young adults who didn't have the balls (my opinion) to man up and serve their country, but I never saw it get to the point of disrespect or combativeness.

The relationship between the faculty and the student body at large with the veteran sub-community was always cordial if not clearly respectful.

The following article (granted, it's from FOX, which I'm not a fan of) expresses the kind of sentiment I'd expect from the Rutgers community:

In a nutshell, it says that an handful of faculty and students created a stink, so she backed out, but the overriding sentiment of the wider Rutgers community was disappointment in her decision to do so:

Rutgers students frustrated after Rice withdraws as commencement speaker | Fox News

I too found my school experience similar to yours, though I didn't go to Rutgers or study Political Sci or History.
 
Re: Rice Withdraws from Rutgers Commencement [W:77]

Rice is also a self made woman, not coat tailing on her husbands laurels. ie Hillary. Anyone that would not want her to speak at their school is clearly a narrow minded fool that will do nothing with their lives in the future.

A narrow minded fool, or a group of courageous youngsters willing to protest a war criminal and enemy of the US Constitution?

Maybe somebody taught them that old bit of wisdom, "If you don't stand for something, you will fall for anything"?

:peace
 
Re: Rice Withdraws from Rutgers Commencement [W:77]

A narrow minded fool, or a group of courageous youngsters willing to protest a war criminal and enemy of the US Constitution?

Maybe somebody taught them that old bit of wisdom, "If you don't stand for something, you will fall for anything"?

:peace
They stood for nothing. Worse they stood for being whiney little children who held their breath and stamped their feet to get their way.
 
Re: Rice Withdraws from Rutgers Commencement [W:77]

They stood for nothing. Worse they stood for being whiney little children who held their breath and stamped their feet to get their way.

They stood for honor and dignity, objecting to having their school bring a war criminal on campus to address the students.

They stood for something, rather than falling for anything, as seems to be the case here. They objected to the sophistry and coverup advanced by the federal government.
 
Re: Rice Withdraws from Rutgers Commencement [W:77]

I attended Rutgers as a dual history/poli-sci undergrad during the Iraq war and as a graduate student (in a notoriously liberal field of study) immediately following the Iraq war.

During that time, and as an alum, I've attended numerous colloquiua and lectures (Eagelton series and other) related to the Iraq/Afghanistan wars and American foreign policy more generally.

I've been a member of RUSERVS (the Rutgers student veteran organization) since it's inception in the mid 2000s.

Other than a handful of undergrad rallies nothing ever gave me the impression that the Rutgers student body was excessively absorbed in anti war sentiment.

Given the nature of my dual undergrad major, and the courses I took, I expect that if there were an aggressive anti war sentiment among the faculty I would have been exposed to it.

Sure I had professors who were overtly liberal in terms of their views of the war, but I also had professors who were overtly conservative.

Most were somewhere in between, trying to provide instruction based on a balanced view without injecting their personal philosophies into the course material overmuch.

In in-class discussions with other students related to topics of war and peace generally and the GWOT specifically I think the majority were always of an anti war bent (both generally and specifically), and I think that's what you'd expect from a population of service-age young adults who didn't have the balls (my opinion) to man up and serve their country, but I never saw it get to the point of disrespect or combativeness.

The relationship between the faculty and the student body at large with the veteran sub-community was always cordial if not clearly respectful.

The following article (granted, it's from FOX, which I'm not a fan of) expresses the kind of sentiment I'd expect from the Rutgers community:

In a nutshell, it says that an handful of faculty and students created a stink, so she backed out, but the overriding sentiment of the wider Rutgers community was disappointment in her decision to do so:

Rutgers students frustrated after Rice withdraws as commencement speaker | Fox News

Very interesting and you make me rethink my OP. Maybe Rice should not have let this small group of misfits run her off.
 
Re: Rice Withdraws from Rutgers Commencement [W:77]

Very interesting and you make me rethink my OP. Maybe Rice should not have let this small group of misfits run her off.

I think I agree with you, in respect to Rice shouldn't have knuckled under.

I mean, as a matter of principal I do agree with you.

But something screwy has been going on this year with the planning of Rutgers' commencement and the invitation of speakers.

Take a look at the article I'll link below.

It talks about Eric LeGrand, a former RU DT who was signed to the Buccaneers but was paralyzed while making a tackle in a 2010 game against Army. You may have heard of him. LeGrand has become something of a cause célèbre among Rutgers faithful and a minor celebrity in NJ more generally and to some extent nationally. He has been very visible in terms of raising awareness related to spinal cord injuries and recovery from such injuries, giving motivational speeches, and has raised quite a bit of money for the cause.

Anyhow...

Apparently, the RU president's chief of staff called LeGrand this past Saturday night, after Rice pulled the plug, and invited him to be the commencement speaker. Then, on Monday, he called back and told LeGrand that the school decided to go in another direction (Kean). LeGrand made a bit of a stink about his disappointment in being jerked around and whatnot and because of his celebrity he got a bit of traction. On Tuesday he was re-invited to speak at the ceremony with Rutgers claiming "misunderstanding" and "miscommunication" and claiming, "...it was never Rutgers' intention to have just one speaker".

So, yeah, a pretty lousy way to run a railroad.

Part of me is starting to think that maybe Rutgers was jerking Rice around too, in some way, and her claiming that she didn't want to ruin the day for a small population of dissenters might have been the "noble" way for her to bow out while allowing Rutgers administration to save a little face.

Why she would do that, if she even did do that (note that this is just me speculating), is beyond me, as she owes nothing to Rutgers or its president (that I know of).

But as has already been said in this thread Rice is a class act and I wouldn't put it past her to let someone off the hook if there were some way for her to do so.

Oh, the article I mentioned:

http://www.washingtonpost.com/blogs...player-hurt-by-rutgers-commencement-reversal/
 
Re: Rice Withdraws from Rutgers Commencement [W:77]

They stood for honor and dignity, objecting to having their school bring a war criminal on campus to address the students.

They stood for something, rather than falling for anything, as seems to be the case here. They objected to the sophistry and coverup advanced by the federal government.

war criminal?... or the person that kept you safe post 9/11....
 
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Re: Rice Withdraws from Rutgers Commencement [W:77]

Part of free speech that you obviously HATE is that people can protest. Why do you hate free speech so much?

Left wingers often confuse free speech with threats of violence and hooliganism. One can support the former while condemning the latter.

Disrupting a ceremony and shouting people down is not free speech.
 
Re: Rice Withdraws from Rutgers Commencement [W:77]

war criminal?... or the peson that kept you safe post 9/11....

Yes, how quickly they forget how afraid everyone was that there would be more attacks following 9-11 and state sponsors of terrorism would increase their efforts to bring the US down. Having been protected from that they have nothing but contempt for the people who defended them.
 
Re: Rice Withdraws from Rutgers Commencement [W:77]

Yes, how quickly they forget how afraid everyone was that there would be more attacks following 9-11 and state sponsors of terrorism would increase their efforts to bring the US down. Having been protected from that they have nothing but contempt for the people who defended them.

well said..
 
Re: Rice Withdraws from Rutgers Commencement [W:77]

Yes, how quickly they forget how afraid everyone was that there would be more attacks following 9-11 and state sponsors of terrorism would increase their efforts to bring the US down. Having been protected from that they have nothing but contempt for the people who defended them.

Yeah, good thing we got those WMDs!!

:roll:

Look, as I've said, I think Rice is a class act, and she's a far cry from a war criminal.

But to imagine that the "war on terror" was necessary, successful, useful, effective, or anything like that, is insane.

Iraq has become a breeding ground for terrorism and Afghanistan is about a year away from going back to the same old, same old.

If anything, Bush admin policies have destabilized the world and added to the threat of terrorism (which, paradoxically, was never that enormous a threat to begin with but, if anything, has only gotten worse) .

Meanwhile, the same people who were prosecuting a fruitless two-front war in the Middle East turned the United states into the closest thing to a militarized police state that its been since British troops were being quartered in farmhouses.

One more thing, Bush, Rice, Rumsfeld, et al. played absolutely no role in defending anyone from anything.

They, themselves, were among the most insulated and defended people to ever walk the Earth.

To the extent that anybody can receive credit for anything approximating "defense" it's the folks who wore uniforms, not the assholes in suits.

Don't take this to mean that I "hate" George Bush or anything like that. I voted for the guy twice and have NEVER attacked him personally.

His failed policies, and questionable legacy, however, are another matter.

Failure is failure, regardless of whether it's Red or Blue.

They threw billions of dollars and thousands of lives down a bottomless hole and have succeeded in accomplishing virtually nothing by doing so.
 
Re: Rice Withdraws from Rutgers Commencement [W:77]

Left wingers often confuse free speech with threats of violence and hooliganism. One can support the former while condemning the latter.

Disrupting a ceremony and shouting people down is not free speech.

Not confusing it at all with that, but nice try at deflection. The right typical does that when they can't refute anything.
 
Re: Rice Withdraws from Rutgers Commencement [W:77]

Yeah, good thing we got those WMDs!!

:roll:

Look, as I've said, I think Rice is a class act, and she's a far cry from a war criminal.

But to imagine that the "war on terror" was necessary, successful, useful, effective, or anything like that, is insane.

Iraq has become a breeding ground for terrorism and Afghanistan is about a year away from going back to the same old, same old.

If anything, Bush admin policies have destabilized the world and added to the threat of terrorism (which, paradoxically, was never that enormous a threat to begin with but, if anything, has only gotten worse) .

Meanwhile, the same people who were prosecuting a fruitless two-front war in the Middle East turned the United states into the closest thing to a militarized police state that its been since British troops were being quartered in farmhouses.

One more thing, Bush, Rice, Rumsfeld, et al. played absolutely no role in defending anyone from anything.

They, themselves, were among the most insulated and defended people to ever walk the Earth.

To the extent that anybody can receive credit for anything approximating "defense" it's the folks who wore uniforms, not the assholes in suits.

Don't take this to mean that I "hate" George Bush or anything like that. I voted for the guy twice and have NEVER attacked him personally.

His failed policies, and questionable legacy, however, are another matter.

Failure is failure, regardless of whether it's Red or Blue.

They threw billions of dollars and thousands of lives down a bottomless hole and have succeeded in accomplishing virtually nothing by doing so.

Thanks, but none of what you posted has any relevance to the question of what Bush, Rice, et al. chose to do in response to the terrorist attacks. That the current president has squandered the gains made in Iraq and in the counterterrorism effort with his bad policy isn't Rice's purview. That the intelligence on WMD going into Iraq was wrong isn't Bush's fault -- the CIA was saying what everyone knew to be true at the time. The legend that the left spun about Cheney manipulating intelligence was confirmed to be untrue by 2 bipartisan commissions.

They say hindsight is 20-20, and that's where Rice's detractors heads are.

After all the worry about additional terrorist attacks on the US there were none for the remainder of Bush's tenure. And it wasn't for lack of trying on Al Qaeda's part. To say that Bush et al. protected nobody is hateful nonsense.
 
Re: Rice Withdraws from Rutgers Commencement [W:77]

Not confusing it at all with that, but nice try at deflection. The right typical does that when they can't refute anything.

Given that disrupting the ceremony and shouting Rice down was exactly what the "protesters" were going to do, it's what such protester usually do, my comment was right on point.
 
Re: Rice Withdraws from Rutgers Commencement [W:77]

war criminal?... or the person that kept you safe post 9/11....

I assume that's a joke. :lol:
 
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