When I first heard what an enormous sum the Amherst College Program Board had dedicated to Sunday's debate between Ann Coulter and Peter Beinart, my reaction was, "How is that okay when there was such protest against Scalia?" I made some attempt to reserve judgment, but after seeing Ann Coulter in action, I am genuinely appalled.

Where was the LJST department boycott? Where were the protesters? I thought both were unjustified and completely antithetical to the purpose of an Amherst education when Scalia came, but their conspicuous absence on Sunday seems to say "she's not so bad."

Well, she is. I have never heard anything so offensive as to charge that Christians were better than Muslims, or as Coulter says it "moose-lumms," because Christians do a better job of not flying planes into buildings.

Nancy Hawa '05

Program Board not responsible

Amherst College Program Board (ACPB) is a non-partisan student organization and does not endorse the views expressed by either of the speakers during the debate between Peter Beinart and Ann Coulter on Sunday, Oct. 17. While recognizing that many of the opinions expressed by the debaters were controversial, it is our hope that the event will stimulate awareness and critical discussion of political issues at Amherst College. We encourage everyone to vote in this year's national election.

ACPB Executive Board

Hanna Campbell '07

Lauren Espinoza '07

Crystal Fogg '05

Adam Kaplan '07

Jason Klinghoffer '06

Gloria Monfrini '05

Mira Serrill-Robins '06

Don't waste money on fame

I hesitate to write to the student newspaper, but the staff editorial two weeks ago about "well-known speakers" precludes restraint. The editors said that without expensive, "big-name," "famous," "prominent," "highly visible" speakers who "generate ... buzz," "students will choose to spend their free time some place other than a lecture hall." Without the rich and famous, Amherst students wouldn't know what to talk about. If so, you're in deeper trouble than you think. First, the parasitism is appalling. Second, reflection and entertainment differ.

The Scalia imbroglio last spring generated a forgettable dust-up about free speech on campus and some nasty partisan letters, not insightful debates about jurisprudence or informed arguments about legal standpoints. The "buzz" vanished with Scalia, another triumph of giddy controversy over sustained thought. Recalling all that titillation as elevated campus discourse, you advocate for more of the same like Ann Coulter's recent appearance, a genuine disgrace to the Amherst community. Coulter says that al-Qaeda should have bombed The New York Times, the U.S. "should invade [terrorists'] countries, kill their leaders and convert them to Christianity" and Muslims are deranged. What gripping positions! I can't wait to debate them! That Amherst College paid this superficial charlatan $20,000 is rebarbative; that it expected her to stir up "more discussion" is risible. [There are violent-minded folks on the Left and Right; the kind of poison hardly matters.]

The point is that such expensive celebrities cannot lead "discussion" in a place of learning and dialogue. Thugs like Coulter charge for being controversial, not for being interesting. A discussion is only as good as the discussants, and 99 percent of those popular, pricey pundits you covet got that way precisely by contagiously debasing intellectual and political language. Third, "well-known speakers" are just that; why waste precious resources hosting the repetitious drones of TV and blog fame? "Star names" belong on Entertainment Tonight, not college campuses.

Finally, I throw down the gauntlet. You think Coulter is "the type of lecturer that will effectively generate debate among students?" Fine, let's have a post-"bring on the hate" debate about the war and see what all that money bought the College. An old truth will emerge. Money and "names" don't facilitate thinking; ideas and independence do. Sometimes the truth lies not in our stars, but in our selves.

Visiting Professor of

Political Science

Sayres Rudy

Admissions gives wrong impression

The first person a prospective student sees when he or she walks onto the Amherst College campus is usually sitting at the front desk in the admissions office. She is a very pleasant woman who is helpful, informative and wearing a Bush-Cheney pin. For the reminder of the day, that is the only political pin a prospective student will see in relation to the admissions office because tour guides are banned from wearing political pins.

It seems hypocritical that the admissions staff has allowed this discrepancy to continue for as long as it has. No one is claiming that this staffer does not have the right to wear her pin, but if she is allowed to do so, then so should the tour guides. Our campus has very diverse political views ranging from the extreme Left to the far Right and we hope that all feel welcome. However, we fear that the message that this campus is an open environment designed to be conducive to varying points of view and political conversation is not the one Amherst College is conveying to students and parents during this election year. By allowing only one pin to be worn by a single individual, it may be perceived that this campus is not open to political diversity.

First impressions of a school are important to how welcoming a campus feels to an individual. Many students ultimately base their admissions decision on the degree of comfort they felt on a campus. The political statement that the admissions office is allowing to occur is not okay. Students here often enter into political discussions or are politically involved, but these activities are secondary to academic pursuits. A school that desires to hold academics as the highest priority should not imply that politics are involved in the running of the school other than as a peripheral interest to students.

There is no way to avoid all political propaganda. However, either tour guides and other admission staff should be allowed to wear buttons supporting their political parties or no pins should be allowed, keeping admissions separate from the political debates of this campus. Although in two weeks this will become a moot point, right now this does not seem to be the appropriate face for Amherst to show to the world.

Elizabeth Dei Rossi '05

Emily Foran '05

Palestinian view is missing

The political dialogue at Amherst has a tendency to mirror that of the national media. After all, the national media is the primary source of information on which we base our views. But the media has always failed to represent particular viewpoints-perhaps none more so than the Palestinian perspective in the Israeli-Palestinian conflict.

The extent to which this deficiency has manipulated popular opinion became alarmingly clear during the Oct. 5 vice presidential debate. When a candidate for vice president, supposedly representing the more progressive of the two parties, refuses to even acknowledge the existence of the Palestinian citizen as anything besides a terrorist, something is amiss. Both sets of candidates share the same position on this topic. In their uncritical support of Israel, they hold a position in opposition to international law and the international community.

The singularity of the American stance was affirmed by the recent vote in the U.N. Security Council in which the U.S. was the only country to support Israel's construction of the security barrier in the West Bank. During the vice presidential debate, John Edwards shared the tragic story of a 2001 suicide bombing in Jerusalem that killed six Israeli children. He used this story to illustrate his opinion that Israel not only has the right but the obligation to defend itself. In the week prior to the debate, six Palestinian children were killed in an Israeli military offensive in Gaza. We deserve a more balanced portrayal of this conflict and candidates who represent the full range of perspectives.

It is our hope that Amherst College, as a community dedicated to education and dialogue, can begin to have an open and informed discussion on those topics most deeply and urgently underrepresented in our national discourse.

Michael Page '05

Hilary Plum '04E

Choose president based on views

An American president should be a skilled debater, Max Rosen insisted in his piece last week. His case, however, confuses what's important.

Rosen asks why we no longer "intrinsically value in our president" the ability to debate. He asks if Bush's inarticulateness isn't a "significant strike" against the president. But consider it this way. If Bush had debated better, would Rosen now praise him for that intrinsically valuable skill? If Kerry had debated clumsily, would Rosen now call it a significant strike against Kerry's run? Probably not.

This just says that eloquence is an accessory, but not the most important thing. Rosen's piece, however, seems to imply the opposite. He says that Bush's ineloquence shows a lack of intellect. Therefore, Bush is unfit to be president.

But intellect, or at least the part revealed in debating, can hardly be the most crucial thing a president needs. Otherwise, does it mean that a smart, well-spoken president is necessarily a good one? If I think Bush has the right opinion, it doesn't matter how awkwardly he says it. Rosen asks who you trust, Bush or Kerry, to understand new issues. If Kerry were inarticulate but believed the same things, wouldn't Rosen still trust him to make good decisions?

This isn't supposed to excuse Bush's poor showing in the first debate. It only rejects Rosen's pitch that therefore Bush doesn't deserve to be president. Sure it's better if a president is both right and eloquent. But I'd rather he were right first before worrying about his eloquence.

Or, to use Kerry's line: Suppose Bush made a mistake in how he talks about his ideas. Suppose Kerry made a mistake in what his ideas are. Which is worse?

John Cui '07