At Least Some Are Still Learning

Of course we can anticipate limbaugh-delay-dobson-frist balderdash that the halls of academia are full of marxists and other heathens, probably to the point where freedom of speech might still be an option under certain circumstances, but how about we all celebrate this from Dan Froomkin at the Washington Post:

[snip]

I wrote in Friday's column that Bush will be giving a commencement address next month at Calvin College, a small Christian institution in Western Michigan, highly regarded for its contributions to evangelical intellectual thought.

I'm betting that most of you readers out there, like me, suspected that Calvin was picked at least in part to assure Bush a supportive audience -- as opposed to, say, what he might find at your typical Ivy League university. (The other commencement address he'll be giving will be at the U.S. Naval Academy.)

But we -- and possibly the White House -- may have been wrong.
On closer inspection, it turns out that Calvin College is not the bastion of the Christian Right it appeared to be. In fact, judging from my e-mail, it's a veritable hotbed of those other Christian values -- the ones that oppose war, work for social justice, and don't think much of the president at all.

Professor Kenneth Pomykala, chair of Calvin College's Department of Religion (and a regular White House Briefing reader!) wrote to me that some members of the community "are unhappy with Bush's visit because we believe that Christian values require public policies that seek social justice, compassion for the disenfranchised, human rights, a commitment to peace, care and preservation of the environment, and honesty, say, from political leaders -- in short, policies opposed to the Bush agenda."

[snip]

And Raleigh Chadderdon, who will be one of the approximately 900 Calvin College students getting their diploma on May 21st, wrote that "the majority of graduating seniors I've talked with since have generally been disappointed, frustrated, and feeling betrayed by the school's decision to politicize our graduation. . . .

"Once word was out, a significant number of students were scrambling to counteract the event, setting up dialogue over e-mail which now will hopefully take place on a public online venue, just recently started."

That Web site is called Our Commencement Is Not Your Platform.

And what is Professor Pomykala planning to do during Bush's speech?

"As a faculty member, I'm required to attend commencement, but I plan on reading a book during the president's speech -- probably My Pet Goat."

What do you suppose the book is on how soon a "scheduling conflict" for our nonelected nonleader turns up?

And to reinforce that idea that reception for bushevik principles might also be rather low in those ivy-laden halls, Josh at Talking Points Memo has this:

Excellent! A little street theater. Or, I guess, a little elite college campus theater. But, hey, same difference.

Washington may be waiting on the edge of its seat for the filibustering and nuclear optioning to get started. But students at Princeton just won't wait.

It seems that a few years back the Frist family (yep, that Frist family) donated a big chunk of change to the University to build what was later named the "Frist Campus Center." And starting this morning, students and even faculty members will be standing outside the building 'filibustering' Frist -- reading aloud from phone books, bios of the seven nominees, the bible, textbooks and probably a bunch of other stuff since they're going to go for 12 hours straight today. And they'll probably keep going tomorrow.

Here's some more information on what they're doing from one of the filibuster's organizers.