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Rather speech ends sourly
This Tuesday, the University of Maine was able to get former CBS Evening News anchor Dan Rather, along with former Secretary of Defense Bill Cohen, as guest speakers on campus.
Both speakers gave positive speeches concerning changes within the news media. The question and answer period, however, was a failed attempt at an anti-Iraq war rally.
Question-and-answer periods at events of this nature are carefully controlled affairs where questions are written on cards and passed in before being selected. Of the four questions asked of Rather and Cohen, three of them were related to the war in Iraq and posed in such a way as to instigate the speaker to criticize the war. Cohen gracefully side-stepped the loaded question posed to him, while Rather, when asked him to compare Iraq to Vietnam, disagreed and said the two wars had more differences then similarities.
Whoever filtered these questions cleary exercised an agenda. This was an inappropiate abuse of power at an event aimed to serve all of the campus.
Baldacci put into tiny study lounge
UMaine Won’t Discriminate sponsored a special student forum featuring Governor John Baldacci. The location of the forum was Hancock Hall, an obvious choice as it is the pinnacle of beauty and prestige on campus.
While Hancock is recognized as the equity-themed residential hall, a guest of Baldacci’s profile could have been shown a little more hospitality than the study lounge of a dorm.
A venue with as limited a capacity as a study lounge sends a unwelcoming message to our guests and listeners.
If the forum had been placed in a more prominent location, such as Memorial Union or any of the nicer classrooms on campus, it could have attracted a larger audience.
If an intimate location for the discussion was what UMaine Won’t Discriminate was after, then the bathrooms of Hart Hall are available weekends from 2 to 2:16 p.m.
