Cornell Insider

a blog by the writers of the Cornell Review

Archive for October, 2009

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Sowell Slams Obama and Uncritical Supporters

Posted by Cornell Insider Staff on October 31, 2009

In a new article, former Cornell Professor Thomas Sowell criticizes not only Barack Obama’s domestic and foreign policy mistakes, but also lambasts the audacity of supporters who refuse to accept criticism or skepticism towards the President. Here’s an excerpt:

Among the most pathetic letters and e-mails I receive are those from people who ask why I don’t write more “positively” about Obama or “give him the benefit of the doubt.”

No one– not even the President of the United States– has an entitlement to a “positive” response to his actions. The entitlement mentality has eroded the once common belief that you earned things, including respect, instead of being given them.

As for the benefit of the doubt, no one– especially not the President of the United States– is entitled to that, when his actions can jeopardize the rights of 300 million Americans domestically and the security of the nation in an international jungle, where nuclear weapons may soon be in the hands of people with suicidal fanaticism. Will it take a mushroom cloud over an American city to make that clear? Was 9/11 not enough?

At the beginning of the article Sowell recounts his own experience of questioning power at a faculty meeting. I have a feeling that the “certain academic institution” he mentions is Cornell.

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Jarrett Stumped on CNN

Posted by Cornell Insider Staff on October 29, 2009

Sorry to keep beating a dead horse with a stick, but here’s a video of top Obama advisor Valerie Jarrett dodging a tough question on media bias from CNN’s Campbell Brown. As O’Reilly pointed out last night on The Factor, it’s interesting to watch all the news networks suddenly rally around Fox News.

Posted in National News | Tagged: | 2 Comments »

Boxer is coo-coo for climate change

Posted by Oliver Renick on October 27, 2009

Barbara Boxer, in an effort to increase awareness about her (and John Kerry’s) new climate change bill, released this video on YouTube. If you haven’t seen it yet, it’s almost comical; I highly recommend it.  As we watch Senator (not Mrs.!) Boxer bottle feed a plump baby milk, we are shown catastrophic images of trafficked highways, erupting smokestacks, disintegrating glaciers, and Katrina victims holding up ‘Help Us’ signs.  She obviously hasn’t been following the news lately, but, that is expected.

But what really surprises me here are the comments by the viewers- in the past, I have found that most political videos are flooded with (primarily unintelligent) comments from far-left viewers.  I’m not sure why; possibly it is in part to the perpetuation of viewing by left-wing media organizations linking to such videos (i.e, huffpost, msnbc.com, dailykos).  But this time, it seems to be the reverse way around.  Perhaps public fear of ‘global warming’ is in fact lowering.  One thing is for sure, fear-mongering videos like Boxer’s will only continue to drive this number down!  The good news here is that views on this video are only at 300! And it took me quite a bit of searching to find it, too. Here’s some of the more funny comments I saw:

xempla: She looks uncomfortable. She looks like that’s the first baby she’s ever held on her lap in her life.

jamietud: If she really cared about her grandchild, she wouldn’t be helping to bury him under mounds of debt alongside everyone else’s grandchild.

nahlin356: A great pity no scientists are present, but then that would destroy the whole argument

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MRM #22

Posted by Cornell Insider Staff on October 25, 2009

cornellusa2- Continuing with our series of posts about the war between the White House and Fox News, check out this alternative viewpoint from Joe Klein. Even though he fits into the camp of people who think Fox “peddles a fair amount of hateful crap,” he still maintains that the administration is making a big mistake in focusing on attacking Fox and diverting attention away from the real issues.

- Bilmes has a good list of recommendations for improving homecoming (yeah, for those of you who didn’t know, we do have homecoming at Cornell).

- Cornell admins have decided not to reinstate Ujamaa Housing Director Ken Glover.

- A cool graphic from MetaEzra on the geographic distribution of Cornellians.

- Garry Kasparov, leader of The United Civil Front in Russia, criticizes the ineffectiveness of Obama’s “goodwill bubble.”

- An interesting post/discussion on grade inflation over at the Stanford Review Blog.

- Senator Gillibrand says cap and trade commissions will be good for NYC, fails to mention anything about carbon caps destroying the American economy.

Posted in Campus Insiders, National News | Tagged: , , , , | Leave a Comment »

(Kraut)Hammering the Nail in the White House’s Coffin

Posted by Oliver Renick on October 23, 2009

On Wednesday, Dennis wrote about Nile Gardner’s article on the war between Fox News and the White House.

From postwritersgroup.com

From postwritersgroup.com

There’s no doubt about it – a battle has been waged and the Capitol Hill generals are of the likes of Rahm Emmanuel, Anita Dunn, and David Axelrod.  Today, Charles Krauthammer (a.k.a ‘the Hammer’ at the Insider) takes on the subject, and as usual, explores and exposes every nuance of the most recent leftist media attack.

Earlier this week, the man in charge of overseeing the executive payrolls at organizations receiving stimulus money, Ken Feinberg, was offered up by the Treasury Department to interview on just about every news network except Fox.  Fortunately, the other news channels refused such an offer without the inclusion of the White House’s step-child network, Fox.  Krauthammer points out the important relevance of a seemingly trivial action:

This was an important defeat because there’s a principle at stake here. While government can and should debate and criticize opposition voices, the current White House goes beyond that. It wants to delegitimize any significant dissent. The objective is no secret. White House aides openly told Politico that they’re engaged in a deliberate campaign to marginalize and ostracize recalcitrants, from Fox to health insurers to the U.S. Chamber of Commerce.

He goes on to point out that such actions taken by the White House do not violate any laws or constitutional guidelines, but rather an intangible political principle that must be held up.

There’s nothing illegal about such search-and-destroy tactics. Nor unconstitutional. But our politics are defined not just by limits of legality or constitutionality. We have norms, Madisonian norms.

Madison argued that the safety of a great republic, its defense against tyranny, requires the contest between factions or interests. His insight was to understand “the greater security afforded by a greater variety of parties.” They would help guarantee liberty by checking and balancing and restraining each other — and an otherwise imperious government.

Factions should compete, but also recognize the legitimacy of other factions and, indeed, their necessity for a vigorous self-regulating democracy. Seeking to deliberately undermine, delegitimize and destroy is not Madisonian. It is Nixonian.

What Dennis said in his last post is absolutely true, and the Hammer reaffirms this in his article – there is absolutely no doubt that the White House will lose this battle.  The more effort the administration puts in to delegitimizing Fox News, the more they empower it.  My question is: who is in charge of this assault?  For a president that was hailed as being so incredibly smart and politically agile, this is by far one of the worst possible moves the White House could make, and Obama has not made a visible effort to end it.

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Public Knowledge of Political Issues

Posted by Cornell Insider Staff on October 21, 2009

Pew Research always publishes great public opinion surveys. Check out these data on how much Americans know about current political issues and news:

Public Knowlege

Please tell me you could answer all of these, Cornellians.

I personally find it amusing that knowing Glenn Beck’s job is now considered to be a good test of one’s political knowledge.

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The White House’s War Against Fox News

Posted by Cornell Insider Staff on October 21, 2009

Nile Gardiner has an excellent article in The Telegraph about why the White House will ultimately lose its war against Fox News. He argues that by openly declaring war against Fox News and accusing it of opposing the administration, the White House will only succeed in drawing even more viewers to the cable news channel.

Rupert Murdoch v. Barack Obama

Rupert Murdoch v. Barack Obama

I have long argued that Fox News’ success does not only stem from it’s alleged ideological leanings. Okay, I’ll admit, the network is right-leaning, but they are also fair and balanced. Daytime news reporting is unbiased and includes guests/pundits from both sides of the political spectrum. Yes, Glenn Beck’s political leanings are clear, but Special Report with Brett Baier (6:00-7:00), The Fox Report with Shepard Smith (7:00-8:00), and yes, even The O’Reilly Factor are all politically balanced shows. (Note: I won’t contend with accusations that O’Reilly is acerbic, rude, pretentious, etc., but if you actually think he is a conservative cheerleader, you really have not watched his show in the last five years.) Hannity is a conservative cheerleader, but he always has liberal guests on the show to debate the other side of the issue. Like Gardiner points out in his article, Fox News is not successful because of the political views of the people it puts on television, but because it “is not afraid to challenge the status quo, and take on the power of big government.”

He continues to say that “Fox benefits from an extraordinary level of professional management that sets the gold standard for cable news organizations.” This point I could not agree more with. The reason I watch Fox News for afternoon and morning news is not because I’m tuning in for a conservative twist on the day’s events, but because the quality of their programming is so much better than than CNN, MSNBC, CNBC, etc. The colors and graphics are better, the dialogue with guests is more entertaining, and, I’ll admit it, the weather girls are hotter!

There’s no question that Fox News is more popular and powerful then ever because of Obama’s declared opposition to the network. But why do they oppose it so much? Fox News is a scapegoat, and as Obama’s refusal to go on Chris Wallace’s Sunday morning talk show demonstrated, it is nothing more than a scapegoat. You see, the Obama administration was not worried about the President being treated unfairly on Wallace’s show. Quite the opposite, actually. Had Obama appeared on “the opposition network” and received a good slate of constructive questions, along with due compliments and fair criticisms, Fox News would have been exposed for what it really is: a right leaning but fair and balanced network. And if that truth was exposed to the skeptics, to all those who actually do think that Fox News is responsible for Obama’s sliding poll numbers, then they would have to face up to their own truth: the only thing that is responsible for Obama’s mounting failures and growing opposition is his own administration. That’s a tough admission for those who are still banking on the audacity of hope.

Posted in National News | Tagged: , | 5 Comments »

Solution to Cornell Football’s Woes: Helicopters

Posted by Cornell Insider Staff on October 19, 2009

At least that’s what other universities are doing. Schools like UCLA, Rutgers, Maryland, Cincinnati, and Minnesota are now hoping to land better high school recruits by arriving at their football games with school helicopters. (Landing adjacent to, not on the field, I hope). According to this NYT article, “The impact in terms of flash and access is undeniable.” I personally think a “Big Red Helicopter” would be awesome, but it’s probably not at the top of the administration’s current list of spending priorities.

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MRM #21

Posted by Cornell Insider Staff on October 18, 2009

The front page of this week's Review - check it out via the link in the post before MRM!

The front page of this week's Review - check it out via the link in the post before MRM!

- Budget cuts take a hit on Dutch and Swedish language programs, but they’re not giving up without a fight.

- Cornell finishes seventh in the Solar Decathlon competition. (Plus a nice story about an alum who hosted all the students).

- Via Paul Ibrahim, Thomas Sowell discusses why the government should not decided what is “good” for its citizenry.

- Harvard loses a lot of cash.

- Interesting new research on consumer behavior from the Johnson School.

- Here are the recently published/disclosed Oxford interview questions. The emphasis on subject knowledge is a clear-cut illustration of the differences between American/European universities.

- Peter Berkowitz discusses the failures of academics to stand up for free discussion and thought on campus.

- From The Economist: “…Mr Obama needs to fight [the war in Afghanistan] with conviction.”

- And, finally, just for fun, here’s the hardest logic puzzle ever. (Via MR).

Posted in Campus Insiders, National News | Tagged: , , , , , , | Leave a Comment »

Cornell Review Issues Now Available Online!

Posted by Oliver Renick on October 17, 2009

From this point on, The Cornell Review biweekly newspaper will be available online as a PDF file via the Insider (and the soon-to-be-redesigned thecornellreview.com).

Additionally, you can now sign up to receive the most recent copy of the Review through email – if you would like to join the list, email thecornell.review@gmail.com to stay up-to-date on the freshest issues of the paper! This will not be a spam-filled list-serve, just a single message every two weeks.

So check it out – dowload the file and get to reading! You can get a preview of what this will look like by following the link below to our most recent issues, Vol. 28, Issues 2 & 3.

the Cornell Review, Vol. 28, Issue 2

the Cornell Review, Vol. 28, Issue 3

Posted in Miscellaneous | Leave a Comment »

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