{"article":{"id":26666,"heading":"Minority Opinion","author":"Paul F. Heller","created":"2003-01-19 12:32:06","modified":"2003-01-19 12:32:06","last_modified":"Sun, 19 Jan 2003 19:32:06","article":"

Man, I really wanted to write about something else today, anything else. But the president suddenly careened over to domestic issues on all of us, oddly turning the old wag-the-dog scenario inside out.

Little George, out of the blue, decided to stick his nose into the Supreme Court's business by filing a White House brief, weighing in on the University of Michigan's acceptance policies, which tilt toward minorities. The suit was originally brought against U of M by a handful of white students who actually thought of themselves as victims of discrimination. The case is to be heard in March by the Supremes, and now that they've been told what to do, it should be a much smoother affair overall.

Bush says that U of M's policies are \"impossible to square with the Constitution\", but he didn't specifically mention which part of the Constitution. I skimmed it over again, and I didn't see anything in there about how the University of Michigan's admissions policies being tilted toward minorities were prohibited. I didn't notice that college admissions were somehow inviolable when it comes to the school's picking and choosing of its student body. Perhaps there is something in the letter of the Civil Rights Act that leads Bush to believe otherwise, but if that's the case, then why is it that the angriest voices condemning this action are those of civil rights activists?

Let me explain something about the University of Michigan: It isn't cheap. In fact, it's a hilariously expensive waste of capital in terms of how much it really matters where you went to college later in life. But no kid cares about that; it's usually Mommy and Daddy's money, or the government's money. Another thing about that venerable institution of higher learning: You have to be smart to go there. Dummies don't often make it into U of M, and they never make it out (except for some of the athletes). So anybody out there crying and whining about the plight of non-minorities among the Wolverines is missing the point, whatever the point may be. U of M picks from the very best of applicants, and if they happen to lean toward minorities because they like the way it looks on paper that they graduated so many of them, that should be their bailiwick.

Oh, I know, the taxpayers support the University and pay for the professors' salaries and all of that. But I haven't noticed long lines of manicured white guys waiting for their soup and bread because they missed out in life on account of racial preference at U of M. That just hasn't happened. If they don't make it there, they go on to a lesser school, like Harvard or Yale. And they can still end up being president, even if they aren't all that bright. If there are no damages, there is no case. And to be quite honest about it, the University has so much alumni support, and has such a solid reputation as an academic power (never mind the mega-million dollar sports programs) that it could turn down tax money, downsize a few things and become a private school, and never miss a beat. Of course, that would result in the exclusion of a few thousand financial-aid students, no matter what color they are. So what purpose does this all serve?

There is no way of knowing what Bush's motives are; he rarely seems to have control of his own strings. His other newsworthy domestic announcement brings change to the welfare system. Now single moms (many of whom are of the same minorities that Bush wants to keep out of U of M) will have to graduate from welfare to working forty hours a week, not thirty hours, as had been the case since Bill Clinton signed on to welfare reform several years ago. Yet Bush made no moves to increase the dollar amounts allotted for providing childcare, and the only ones in Washington who are trying to cut payroll taxes on the working poor are Democrats. At a time when unemployment is at its highest level since the recession of the early '90s, shoving a few thousand more welfare mothers into the full-time workforce isn't going to help anyone's chances. And taking a kid away from his or her only parent for ten more hours a week is impossible to square with so-called Republican family values.

Not that long ago, George W. Bush decried \"class warfare\". This came at a time when he was slashing taxes again for the top ten percent of wage earners, leaving the bulk of the populace in the dust. If anyone is guilty of being a class warrior, it is Bush. What he fails to understand is that, demographically, America isn't middle class anymore. His father and his father's friends helped kill that off a long time ago. But stuff like this will energize the two-thirds of the population that usually don't care enough about politics to even know how to vote. That sort of voter, when they do get off their old couches, tends to vote against a candidate that they dislike, rather than for one that they like. That's not necessarily the best kind of electorate, but for many Americans, these are not the best of times.

Bush didn't think about that, though. He was only trying to divert media attention away from his bizarre notions about foreign policy, from the fact that he's about to kneel before North Korea the way has knelt before Saudi Arabia, compromising his country in a time of war, one he keeps saying we cannot afford to lose. <\/p>\n","contact":"pfheller@cox.net","link":"www.hellermountain.com","address":"","phone":"","parent_id":0,"mime_type":"text\/plain","summary":"With his sudden plunge into domestic affairs, President Bush is dogging the wag...","numcomment":0,"fileurl":"\/uploads\/","filesize":null,"article_url":"\/news\/2003\/01\/26666.php"},"attachments":[],"comments":[]}