/>«/)Nebraskan
Since 1901
Editor Sarah Baker
Opinion Page Editor. Samuel McKewon
Managing Editor Bradley Davis
Controversy rising
Appointment of conservative
Ashcroft a concern for liberals
The battle cry of compassionate conser
vatism wasn’t on the mind of President-elect
George W. Bush when he made his most contro
versial appointment of the cabinet.
His selection of former Missouri senator John
Ashcroft for attorney general was not met well by
many liberal advocacy groups, as Ashcroft has
shown in his long public service career the will
ingness to adopt a strongly conservative agenda
often linked with the religious right groups of
America. *
The nomination is the first sign of a conserva
tive, Christian lobby trying hard to stake its claim
in the Bush administration and keep its claim
there for four years.
Ashcroft has a checkered past, if you’re a liber
al. If you have more conservative leanings, he has
a stolid record of values and morality. Either way,
we aren’t sure it is a positive nomination for Bush
to make, as the arbiter of law in this land should
not be so one-sided when it comes to major crim
inal issues. A past record shows that his personal
beliefs have directly affected his views on crime.
Possibly the clearest cases come when he
worked for Missouri, both as governor and as a
senator. These cases were well outlined in the Jan.
7 Kansas City Star Sunday package. They point to
Ashcroft’s certainty in his belief that issues such as
hate crimes and racial discrimination aren’t as
major as most American leaders say they are.
In 1988, it was Ashcroft, as governor, who was
the only member of a 40-person panel, which
included former presidents Jimmy Carter and
Gerald Ford, that refused to sign a report finding
America was moving backward in achieving
equal opportunity for Blacks, Hispanics and
American Indians.
Also as governor, it was Ashcroft who signed
into law a Missouri hate crime bill in 1988 that
gave further penalty to crimes of vandalism and
assault He would not sign any special stipula
tions regarding gays.
As a senator, Ashcroft co-sponsored the Civil
Rights Act of1997, which would outlaw all kinds of
affirmative action. In 1998, he spoke at length in '
th^Southern Partisan Quarterly Review of pro
tecting the heritage of prominent Southern rebels
of the Civil War such as Lee and Stonewall Jackson.
The Southern Partisan Quarterly Review is
considered a neo-confederate rag that has
praised the Ku Klux Klan and writes extensively
of how races have dissipated the gene pool,
according to the Kansas City Star.
This is iust what’s out there about Ashcroft
now. Who knows what will surface with the sen
ate confirmation hearings.
Conservatives snap back that Ashcroft, as attor
ney general, can’t do anything but enforce the law
the Supreme Court hands down. As Janet Reno’s
somewhat imperfect stint proved, however, there’s
more to the job than holding the line. Can anyone,
without any doubt, say that Ashcroft’s extreme
right views won’t come into play?
Of course, it seems clear that this nomination
came with some pressure attached, as Ashcroft is
held up as a paragon of the conservative,
Christian right Bush, who won a needed primary
in South Carolina over Sen. John McCain, largely
through the power of these voters, cannot aban
don them without some risk. For now, he seems
willing to play ball with a few of their demands.
And yet, if this is a sign of things to come, it
plays directly against Bush’s stated goals to usher
in a new cooperation between Democrats and
Republicans. In this harsh era of partisan poli
tics, Ashcroft’s nomination will polarize the belt
way once again.
We oppose Ashcroft’s ascendancy to the attor
ney general. It is no way, in Bush’s words, to start
the healing.
Editorial Board
Sarah Baker, Bradley Davis, Josh Funk, Matthew Hansen,
Samuel McKewon, Dane Stickney, Kimberly Sweet
Letters Policy
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maH: lsttereOunlinfb.unl.edu.
Editorial Policy
Unsigned editorials are the opinions of the Fall 2000 Daily Nebraskan. They do not necessarily
reflect the views of the University of Nebraska-Ljncoln, its employees, its student body or the
University of Nebraska Board of Regents. A column is solety the opinion of its author, a cartoon is
solely the opinion of its artist The Board of Regents acts as publisher of the Daily Nebraskan; poli
cy is set by the Daily Nebraskan Editorial Board. The UNL Publtcatons Board, established by the
regents, supervises the production of the paper. According to policy set by the regents, responsi
bility for the editorial content of the newspaper lies solely in the hands of its employees.
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NealObenneyer/DN
Hunting the stealthy beast
I tell you what, this break
has been fan-to-the-tastic.
Not only did I get to
“cook" with my best friend
Deena, I got to “chill" with
tier as weu. ixiuse mai s wnai
I do baby, I cook and then I
chill- Karon
I started out the vaca- irairen
shun! in Kimball. Where? ^
Exactly. We talked about
misused cliches, what
cliches mean, how to master cliches and, finally,
how to make your own cliches so they become
popular. My favorite thus far is “don’t grip the
dinosaur by the buttocks.” Since I have the power
to invent cliches arbitrarily, I too have no idea what
this means.
Aside from contemplating the power of the
cliche, I saw how people only come home for the
holidays to see how much weight others have
gained (thank god the cocaine kept mine off) and
who has a baby.
I can't believe the people I spent my life with are
now breeding. The only thing I breed is mold in my
room because there is still food in there from the
early ’90s. The mold in no way resembles a baby,
and it never wakes me up crying. In fact, it’s the
other way around, as the mold is so poisonous I
wake up crying.
When I went to the bar where my old preschool
friends were hanging out 20 years later, I kept try
ing to tell them about my new hobby - hunting the
Purple Buffalo - while they were trying to see if I
was any fatter.
I kept trying to explain “teasing” and “trapping”
the elusive beast, and*they kept telling me about
Suzy and little Johnny’s pee stories.
It was painfully obvious everyone
there had traveled different
lines in this here uni- L
vvtou. iviui w vv aa iu
South Dakota, where
the Purple Buffalo
lurks and drinks
champagne, and
everyone else's
was to the
Heaven’s Gate
cult house to
eat the
ethereal
applesauce of "life.”
When I visit Kimball, there are two or three
“hard” lessons I learn every time I go. It’s not really
a vacation because I still get nagged by the parental
units for spilling beverages on the new carpet and
yelled at for rolling my eyes at my mother, but it is a
break from the Purple Buffalo and all of his buffalo
shenanigans.
But that’s neither here nor there. Let's get back
to the "hard” lessons. Small towns, you must love
r them. If you don't, they will gossip about you.
"Look at that Headier; she’s fat now.” “But she
has a PHD in molecular biology.” “But she’s fat.”
The most astute lesson (ha!), is that nothing
much changes, but my parent’s home won't ever
have the same feel again. Since my parents still live
in the same town I spent my whole life abhorring, I
am constantly searching to place old memories
with old faces, and it just don’t matter no more.
Hometown is no longer home.
It’s nice to be home now in Lincoln and back to
the normal life. Normal means having not one, but
two fine ladies puke in and on your father’s car and
then, as you’re getting your car washed in the auto
matic dealy-mo-bobber, the doors don’t open so
your car is trapped in the metal cage. After you gig
gle for five minutes, the gods decide to grant mercy,
and they open the doors to vour sweet freedom.
But no, this freedom only leads to more
heartache. As you go to your apartment, you notice
that your dead car has been towed from the front of
your home. You spend your Christmas money get
ting it from the impound lot and, as no one grants
mercy upon you, you realize that this is your life
and this is what you must deal with.
You smile and notice that all the cops have lost
weight because they’ve been extremely busy tick
eting cars and not sitting at the donut shop (those
cop/donut cliches never become trite), and as they
take advantage of vacationing college students
who have no place to park their cars except, well,
on the street where they belong, nobody cares
because it’s business as usual, and it’s the
person’s responsibility to take care of
thoir <.v0n when they're not
:eive the warnings,
ia’s even worse off
le because her car
Yt work either and
Home sweet
home.
/
Jerry Morgan/DN
Becoming
a brother
for others
The other
day, some
homeless guy
was pestering
me for change.
When I told him
I had none, he
immereu a nou- —
day greeting in a
very sarcastic
tone.
It really hit me that I needed to
make a change in my life and in how I
act. The old me would have just
walked away and said nothing. But I
decided to start the new year off right
by turning over a new leaf in my per
sonal life.
So, I went up to him and said,
“Buddy, I didn’t get a Play Station 2 this
Christmas ’cause it was sold out every
where, so don’t bitch to me about
crappy holidays!” Ohhhh, it felt good.
This newfound confidence has
changed my attitude about many
things. For instance, I realized I have
to quit laughing out loud every time I
hear someone refer to the man as
“President George W. Bush.”
I know, I know, everything is gonna
be fine. Let’s all just keep telling our
selves that. We had Reagan, he was the
guy we all wanted to be. No matter
what, he never got in any trouble.
Clinton was like our homy uncle - he
never got the benefit of the doubt, and
he never should have, but he always
got out of trouble.
W. is who we are. How’d he get
inrougn college; a
steady diet of rum Clinton \VdS
and coke (not the ...
mixed drink). “KG OUT"
How’d he get rich? homy Wide
Who the hell
knows, and who never
cares? What’s he got the
going to do in a benefit of
more hostile world , \ /
atmosphere with *he UOUut,
an economy slow- and he
ing down fast and
violent crime on
the rise? Start pray- should
tag Ms ass off! ftflVC, but
ent from us. We’re he always
all coasting got OUt Of
through college, trnuuip -
we’re all rich (even ,
the poorest
Americans are rich by third-world
standards), and we’re all uncertain
about the future.
Anytime someone stumbles into
good fortune through family connec
tions and luck, I propose we term it as
“pulling a W.” Say the guy on
“Millionaire” gets the million-dollar
question right because his dad was
somehow associated with the correct
answer. We shall now say he “pulled a
W.” Got it? Good.
And when someone gets screwed
due to technicalities and questionable
circumstances, we will term it as “get
ting Gored.” Remember when
Colorado got a fifth down and it cost
Missouri the game? They “got Gored.”
Speaking of college football, now
that the season is over, I think I need to
reevaluate my role as a Cornhusker
fan. Now I ain’t saying the Alamo Bowl
wasn't a grand affair, but troubled
times are on the way. I can feel it com
ing on like a bad mushroom trip.
The old me would have encour
aged everyone not to call for Solich’s
head just yet. I would remind them
that for a good part of his time here,
Saint Osborne was not worshipped.
People questioned his play-calling
ability (“Up the middle again!” people
would yell at the TV.) and doubted that
we would ever win “the big game.”
But it’s the year 2001, and I’m pay
ing good money for that football pro
gram. If we aren’t winning the national
championship every year, something
is wrong. In the meantime, the new me
wants the football staff kicked out of
their posh offices as punishment for
not bringing home a respectable bowl
trophy.
Put the bastards in offices like the
rest of the faculty have and put the
department with the highest reevalua
tion rankings in the football offices for
the semester. As for the basketball
team - oh, who really gives a damn? '
The new me is looking forward to a
semester of academic stimulation
here at the university. I’m not just
going to go through the rest of the
school year on auto-pilot. I’m going to
take off my headphones in class, put
down my Southern Comfort and Citra
and actually pay attention.
In 2001, I’m not going to use my
syllabus as rolling papers. I’m going to
read it and attend all relevant classes
and tests. OK, none of this is probably
going to happen, but hopefully I'll
“pull a W.”
