There have been many attacks against our president involving the war in Iraq. I have listened to these attacks during countless Democratic debates and even more campaign speeches, but I’m having a hard time understanding these accusations that many democratic leaders are making against President Bush. Here are the main ones:

1. Bush lied to the American people about Saddam’s WMDs (weapons of mass destruction): This is absolutely absurd for two reasons. First, Bush conveyed to the American people the intelligence that he received. This is the same intelligence that was given to the U.S. Congress that voted to give the President the authority to use force in Iraq. This was the same intelligence available to the United Nations and the rest of the world. Even before Bush came into office, top Democrats believed in the danger posed by Saddam.

“If Saddam rejects peace and we have to use force, our purpose is clear. We want to seriously diminish the threat posed by Iraq’s weapons of mass destruction program.” – President Clinton, 1998.

“Without question, we need to disarm Saddam Hussein… The threat of Saddam Hussein with weapons of mass destruction is real.” – John Kerry, 2003.

Second, this argument fails to answer the question, “Why?” If Bush knew that Iraq didn’t have WMDs then why did he say they did, knowing he would be in the position he is in now? In poker you don’t bluff if you’re certain your bluff is going to be called.

Democratic presidential candidate Dennis Kucinich could not even answer this question when asked in the recent Wisconsin presidential debate. He said, “Well, you know what, I can’t speak for the president.”

The usually articulate Al Sharpton made a less than eloquent response to the same question.

“You can only assume that [the Bush administration] had to know if they said that they knew where the weapons were, that they knew they didn’t know where they were.”

2. Bush carried out the war in Iraq for political gain: Political gain? What did he have to gain by going into Iraq? Bush still had incredible popularity from his leadership during 9/11, and with the certainty of an economic turn on the horizon, a second term seemed inevitable. This war could have been and still could be Bush’s political downfall. He had absolutely nothing to gain and everything to lose. Even if the Iraqi war and the country’s reconstruction were executed flawlessly, many Americans would still disagree with the President’s pre-emptive strike policy. And if the war played out poorly, then Bush’s political career would surely be over. But Bush took it upon himself to protect this country, and in doing so he was willing to risk a political blunder and his political future so that this country will remain safe and secure.

David Abroms can be contacted at d.abroms@umiami.edu.

As tempting as it was, I almost decided to affiliate with the Democratic Party. But it seems I would have been endorsing their poor choices in primary candidates – I mean, really, did they expect to win America over with Al Gore?

Apparently their strategy this year is just as pitiful. Maybe they are actually hoping that Bush gets voted back in so he won’t try to run again in the future – that is, if he doesn’t extend his office by a swift constitutional amendment and become the next FDR. For a split second I considered the Republican Party but woke up when I didn’t like the sound of a trillion dollar deficit, bombs and guns and the faint ring of the 2000 elections.

So what am I left with? A few minor parties that have problems being recognized for their existence, or do I have a valid reason to pass on voting this year? Well, according to a survey I took at presidentmatch.com, I should apparently vote for Kucinich. He was apparently a 100 percent match for my beliefs despite the fact that I disagreed on his stance for abortion and same-sex marriages.

So I had to ask myself – do I want to sacrifice my moral choices to agree on his stance on other issues that are the complete antithesis of the Bush administration? It seems I am not left with much of a choice. I also have to deal the fact that many politicians’ stances change based upon where the most votes, power and/or money is concerned. I often wish I could cut and paste ideologies from the different parties to create my ideal candidate for the ballot – or even vote 25 percent Republican and 75 percent Democrat.

So if I do go along with Kucinich, I unfortunately have to ask myself: if I did vote for him, would he actually do anything that I cared about – would he push for universal health care, would he reorganize the welfare system, would he put the justice back in the system? Probably not.

So I am left with yet another question – what am I really voting for? Considering how much business gets accomplished on Capitol Hill and how America is truly the founders’ dream of democracy, I seem to be voting for an old guy who is going to represent or misrepresent my country and me.

Marquita K. Bell can be contacted at m.bell3@umiami.edu.

Traditionally, UM doesn’t harbor the most active political culture. Who needs politics when you’ve got football, right? It was disappointing to see less people gather to protest the war than the number who gathered to watch a car smashed with a hammer during homecoming. It was discouraging to see my fellow students focus more on the traffic problems caused by the FTAA protests than the issues that other people our age found so important that they subjected themselves to police beatings and public ridicule in order to try to have their voices heard.

After all this, however, I was still shocked when I saw Maintenance installing a plasma TV in our UC Breezeway. Clearly, people wouldn’t be able to stop and watch for long periods of time, so why waste even more of my tuition? Luckily, an article in The Hurricane informed me that the TV, as well as one just like it placed in the Wellness Center, was a gift! Oh, lucky us!

A group called the University Network gave us the TVs and is offering us a generous sixth of the time on them to use for displaying announcements while they sell the other five sixths to advertisers (mostly movie trailers so far).

“So what?” you say. “The University got two beautiful TVs for free, and they get 10 seconds every minute they wouldn’t have otherwise had.”

Here’s the catch: it’s not free. Reading further, we see that there are plans to install an automatic volume device, “so that the volume will increase when the Breezeway is very noisy.” When the Breezeway is noisy? Does that mean while you are busy trying to have a conversation?

So it’s been decided that a movie trailer is more important than a conversation you are having in a public space that you pay for the right to use.

We’ve seen already that none of you care about war or worker’s rights or countless other causes, but this boils down to something near and dear to your hearts: your money. This company is taking space in the UC that you pay for in order to make a quick dollar.

Continuous blocks of advertising in a crowded space don’t come cheap. Why couldn’t the University have put up the TVs themselves and used the ad revenue to lower our student activity fee?

This is a University. A place for books, not Ben Affleck; for classifications of spiders, not Spiderman 2. Let’s put these “gifts” back in their boxes and say, “Thanks, but no thanks.”

James Hush can be contacted at j.hush@umiami.edu.

Recently, Toyota, Saturn, Nissan and Honda have decided to make all new cars much more gasoline efficient. Leave it up to the Japanese to improve cars that are safe and reliable by making gasoline prices less expensive.

In Sweden, Volvo is the first car company to implement steel bars on the sides of its doors to help protect the drivers and the passengers from receiving bodily damage. Volvo is the first car company built on safety and has excelled for over 30 years.

In Germany, VWs, BMWs, Mercedes and Porsches are all cars engineered to show class and reliability for the consumer to be delighted. Their styles are innovative and sleek-looking. No one has ever said that the shape of their car is an art catastrophe.

Even Korea has made good use of whatever leftover scraps we Americans gave them to make quality, cheap cars that can hold up for five years.

But what about America and its car troubles? Why is it that every recall I hear in the news has to do with an American car that is capable of exploding at any time? The list goes on with Ford Explorers, Ford Broncos, Cadillac Devilles, Oldsmobile Aleros, Ford Pintos, Dodge Stealths… Jesus Christ, the list goes on! America is always duping the consumers by classifying their engines as powerful.

The new Dodge Durango is built on the premise of having DVDs in the car and a HEMI engine. That’s great. Now America can have one example of someone getting killed for watching The Matrix Reloaded while going 130 mph down the freeway! But since the car is very fuel inefficient, reaching that speed requires a helicopter that can refuel tanks in midair.

And people think that bigger cars mean safer rides. Bullshit. After getting into a car accident, the Chevrolet Suburban looked like a Chevrolet Lumina! The SUV was made of aluminum and plastic. Aluminum and plastic belong in a refrigerator – not on the road.

I think when someone buys an American car you have a death wish. The only American cars that I liked were made in the early 1980s, when you could bring your high school sweetheart to the oversized backseat and impregnate her. That is what America lost with its cars over the last 20 years.

Since America can’t build its cars on safety and fuel efficiency, I think America should revert back to those cars with oversized backseats and market them to 18-year-olds. That ought to bring back that American spirit of the football player with his cheap, oversized car having his fun with the hottest blonde cheerleader!

Seth Bleicher can be contacted at s.bleicher@umiami.edu.

To the Editor:

As the school winds down from the insanity of the recent Student Government elections, I must look back at my experience and contemplate its success. As a candidate for president, I had the fortune of getting to know many great people who happened to be opponents of mine, and since have had time to think about where do I go from here.
While I myself did not win, and the final ticket I supported in the runoff did not win either, I must view this election as not a personal defeat, but a major victory for the student body as a whole. One of the main points of my platform was wishing to raise student involvement, and by the nearly 1,900 voters who voiced their opinion in a runoff, I would say our student body’s involvement level is on the right path. Not only was it a victory in terms of voter turnout, but also it was a victory in the sense that the student body could not go wrong with whomever they decided to elect.
Of my opponents, there was not one that I didn’t have the utmost respect for. All of us had unique platform ideas and a genuine love for the school. It came down to Vance Aloupis being elected, and I have no doubt that the student body is in great hands. UM is truly at a crossroads in its 75+ year existence. We are students at a time in which the University has the ability to make great leaps and bounds, but it won’t be done by us just sitting and watching from the sidelines.
I would like to issue a challenge to the remaining seven of us that were not fortunate enough to defeat Vance. If we all love this school as much as we purported, and genuinely care about our platform ideas and how they can positively affect the school, let’s get them done anyway. We should all show our unwavering support for Vance, and do what is necessary to see our ideas through for the better of the school. I can promise I will try to meet my own challenge; I hope my peers follow with me.

Sincerely,

Don Donelson

P.S. To Danny Pedreira and my secret admirer, I appreciate your support and kind words. Thanks for the compliments and coming to my aide. And to the admirer, I’m single; why don’t you come out of hiding?

Once upon a time, states did not allow a black person to marry a white person.

Thankfully, over time, our values and ideas have changed, and the laws have evolved to reflect this. The time has come for them to change again: this time, to accept same-sex marriages.

Briefly, the facts: in November, Massachusetts found a ban on same-sex marriage to be unconstitutional, opening the floodgates for other states to provide marriage licenses to same-sex couples. Now, Bush says he would support a constitutional amendment banning gay marriage.

The problem at hand is essentially changing the definition of the institution of marriage to include same-sex couples. However, many forget that this definition has already changed over the years. What used to be an institution of arranged marriages and men asking fathers for their daughters’ hands has evolved to allow for annulment, separation, divorce, remarriage, extended families and even quickie Vegas nuptials.

Why should people who are in love be discouraged from making a legal, public commitment to each other and enjoying the benefits that come along with that? Isn’t that a good thing?

Currently, only married individuals are entitled to federal benefits like Social Security and federal tax deductions, and marriage can only be between a man and a woman.

Maybe things would be different if all 50 states supported gay marriage.

To much of the college student population, the same-sex marriage controversy is simply a generation-gap issue. After all, we have grown up with gays and lesbians as part of mainstream society, whereas our parents and grandparents’ generations are still coming to terms with accepting sexual freedom.

Pop culture has embraced gay couples, as evidenced by shows like Queer as Folk, Queer Eye for the Straight Guy and the more mainstream Will & Grace. Openly gay artists like Ellen DeGeneres, Melissa Etheridge and Rupert Everett are very popular. Also, there are MTV’s attempts to expose the world to gay issues and the recent prevalence of gay individuals on reality TV shows.

In the meantime, politicians across the country are unsuccessfully trying to do a balancing act. They don’t want to appear to be anti-gay rights, but they also don’t want to be “too liberal” and lose votes. Democratic candidate John Kerry said he is against the constitutional amendment and against same-sex marriage, but in favor of civil unions. He’s trying to play it safe by being middle-of-the-road. Instead, Kerry should come out (pun intended) and have the courage to fully support gay rights.

Likewise, when Bush proposed the amendment, he tried using very politically correct language, saying he supported gay rights and would leave room for civil unions to take place. His administration is attempting to divert the public’s attention from more important issues in the upcoming election, like the economy and the situation in Iraq, by bringing the same-sex marriage debate to the table.

Strangely enough, this controversy has blurred the traditional lines and positions of both parties. Republicans who are usually advocates for a weaker federal government are now campaigning for a constitutional amendment. Democrats who normally favor strong government want the devolution of power to the states.

It’s unlikely for a constitutional amendment to pass, not only because it requires a two-thirds approval in the House and Senate and then ratification by three fourths of the states, but also because it goes against the basic principles on which our society stands (or should stand). Simply proposing it is extremely unyielding. It doesn’t allow room for debate, and it denies states the right to create laws that best represent and protect their citizens.

It’s time for a country that prides itself in protecting liberty to allow same-sex couples to say, “I do” – and (try to) live happily ever after.