ROGER SIMON COLUMN
MARCH 30, 2005

WASHINGTON - - I never imagined that when I became a fellow at Harvard's Institute of Politics this semester I would get a spring break.

Break from what? While everyone around me has been working feverishly, I have been spending these last weeks smelling the flowers. (Or at least I would have been smelling the flowers had they not been covered by several feet of snow.)

In any case, I am on spring break for a week and am celebrating by presenting the work of another one of my liaisons, one of the six undergraduates who have volunteered to work with me.

Matt Anderson is 19, a sophomore in government at Harvard, and is from Guilderland, N.Y., a suburb of Albany. Here is his essay:

By Matt Anderson

My grandfather hated Notre Dame's football team. While this wasn't a unique opinion back when the Fighting Irish were winning countless national championships, he despised that team for a different reason than most people.

My grandfather was a Presbyterian minister, and he thought it was inappropriate for a football team to invoke the name of God. He believed "Touchdown Jesus" and all its variants cheapened the Lord's message.

If my grandfather was alive today, I think he would have felt a similar way about Congress' recent attempts to co-opt God for political purposes during the Terri Schiavo controversy. Though Congress' decision to pass unconstitutional legislation extending Mary and Bob Schindler's right to federal appeal was masked in quasi-secular rhetoric, there was no mistaking the Republican leadership's motives for championing that bill.

Kowtowing to the radical Religious Right is an art form in the Republican Party. In Washington, every year is an election year, even when there's no election being held. It's never too early to start currying favor with your base - - or in the case of the feckless Democrats who supported the Schiavo legislation, diffusing your opponent's potential points of attack.

Heck, the 2008 presidential election is only a little more than 1,300 days away. Senate Majority Leader Bill Frist's transparent attempt to secure the support of members of the Religious Right, (who still hold a veto over the nomination process) with his stunningly irresponsible videotape diagnosis of Terri Schiavo's condition, plainly reminds us of this fact. In a 2008 field likely to contain high-profile moderates Rudy Giuliani and John McCain, Frist is positioning himself as a true social conservative by prescribing the far right its favorite brand of medicine: a not so subtle dose of Old Time Religion.

This type of base politics is nothing new - - the 2004 election just proved its efficacy. Whether supporting vouchers for sectarian institutions, or fighting to place the Ten Commandments in court houses, blurring the line between church and state is a Washington pastime that the Nationals have little chance of supplanting in popularity. Convening a special session of Congress (during that body's Easter recess no less) to pass a bill that affects only a single family, is just one particularly blatant example of this tendency.

This type of pandering needs to stop. It's disrespectful to God, and it's disrespectful to our democracy.

God doesn't take sides in football games and he doesn't take sides in politics. To assume otherwise exhibits an extreme and prideful arrogance.

The Bible, after all, isn't an easy book to decipher. Though President Bush declared that his decision to go to war with Iraq was a divinely-sanctioned part of bestowing "the Almighty's gift [of democracy] to every man and woman in this world," God is rarely clear about His intentions.

The same God that told my grandfather to sermonize against the Vietnam War, told President Bush to invade Iraq. The same God that told my grandfather be tolerant of the way other people lived their lives, told President Bush to cater to the "God Hates Fags" crowd by using gay marriage as election-year boilerplate.

We need to get God out of politics. While we can't ask voters to leave their deeply-felt religious convictions outside of the voting booth, (everyone is entitled to vote on whatever basis they choose) we can ask public figures to stop exploiting God for electoral gain. The Republican Party needs to start respecting the faithful religious individuals they supposedly represent, and resist the temptation to use God to score cheap political points.

ROGER SIMON COLUMN
MARCH 28, 2005

WASHINGTON - - Congress hates to waste a good grovel.

When lawmakers crawl on their bellies, they expect a little appreciation in return.

Recently members of Congress rushed back to Washington during their spring vacation to adopt a law trying to "save" Terri Schiavo. Prominent Republicans like Senate Majority Leader Bill "I'd Rather Be Running for President" Frist naturally expected that his championing of Schiavo would be rewarded.

Even though Frist, a doctor, has never met or examined Schiavo, he said on the Senate floor that he questioned the diagnosis, made by doctors who had examined her, that Schiavo was in a persistent vegetative state.

"I question it," he said, "based on a review of the videotape footage which I spent an hour or so looking at."

Which is exactly how we want our doctors to behave when it comes to life and death decisions, right?

Following the assertion by Frist, who is a heart surgeon, the Washington Post wrote: "Some medical professionals questioned the appropriateness of Frist challenging court-approved doctors who have treated Schiavo. Laurie Zoloth, director of bioethics for the Center for Genetic Medicine at Northwestern University, said she was surprised to hear Frist weigh in, given that he has not examined Schiavo. 'It is extremely unusual -- and by a non-neurologist, I might add,' Zoloth said in an interview.

"Were Frist rendering an official medical judgment, she said, relying on an 'amateur video' could raise liability issues. After 15 years, 'there should be no confusion about the medical data, and that's what was so surprising to me about Dr. Frist disagreeing about her medical status,' Zoloth said."

But it was no surprise at all from a political point of view. Frist expected to be rewarded for his behavior by Christian conservatives who would appreciate his trying to save Schiavo.

Many other Republicans, including President Bush, felt the same way and many Democrats, terrified over anything that smacked of a "values" issue, cowered in a corner.

So imagine the surprise of those who voted for the Schiavo law, moving the case to a federal court, when polls revealed that the public was horrified: not with removing a feeding tube from Terri Schiavo, but horrified that Congress was interfering in this decision.

Liberals were horrified, conservatives were horrified, evangelical Christians were horrified.

What Congress forgot in its headlong rush to pander is that most Americans don't want Congress making personal, family decisions for them.

Most parents or spouses could easily feel two things about the Schiavo case: First, how agonizing it would be to make a decision whether to prolong the life of their child or spouse by artificial means if that person was in a persistent vegetative state with no hope of recovery.

Second, how outrageous it would be for Congress to pass a law taking that decision out of their hands.

Is there a parent anywhere, who would want to turn over a decision about their child to Bill Frist? Or House Majority Leader Tom Delay? Or George Bush?

Not only did numerous polls show large majorities of the public opposing Congress' interference, the polls showed that voters were turning against members of Congress who had pandered on the issues.

According to Poll Track: "Fifty-four percent of Time respondents said they were somewhat or more likely to vote against a member of Congress who had voted to move the case to the federal courts, while 21 percent said they would be more likely to vote for him or her. Sixty-five percent said Congress' intervention had more to do with politics than members' values and principles."

Imagine the consternation in Congress: The Schiavo law had turned out to be a grovel wasted.

But don't worry. Our lawmakers have a lot more grovels left in them.

ROGER SIMON COLUMN
MARCH 23, 2005

CAMBRIDGE, Mass. - - Leave it to Congress to reduce tragedy to farce.

Leave it to Congress to summon Terri Schiavo to leave Florida, where she is on a feeding tube, and testify in Washington even though she has spent the last 15 years in a persistent vegetative state, a state also called "wakefulness without awareness."

Leave it to Congress to try to "save" the life of Terri Schiavo, who, according to her doctors, cannot think, feel or have memories. Her cerebral cortex has been reduced to liquid and destroyed.

Terri Schiavo's husband is her legal guardian and as such has a legal right to determine her medical treatment, when she is unable to. He has sworn under oath (as have two others) that when Terri Schiavo was in good health, she stated more than once she never wanted to be kept alive through artificial means should something befall her.

This is disputed by Terri Schiavo's parents, who are fighting to keep her hooked to a feeding tube, even though she could well last another 30-40 years in this vegetative state. This state is considered "far more severe than a coma," according to Reuters, which also reported: "Experts say Terri Schiavo would experience no discomfort if allowed to die, as the part of her brain that experiences pain is unlikely to be functioning."

The state courts have ruled on behalf of her husband time after time.

But Congress rushed back into session last weekend to pass what would appear to be an obviously unconstitutional bill to move the case to federal court. The president, according to the White House, was roused from bed after Congress acted, went into the hallway to sign the bill into law, and then went back to bed.

There are (at least) two questions here: First, where does Congress get the power to assign cases within the judicial system? Where does the legislative branch get to determine how the judicial branch shall act?

Second, where does Congress get the power to determine the proper medical treatment for individuals? Whatever happened to the sanctity of the family?

Let's say your child falls ill and one doctor recommends a high-risk operation to save him and another doctor says it would be best to wait.

Should Congress be able to pass a law forcing you to make your child undergo the high-risk operation? Is that the proper role of Congress? Should Congress be able to take such a decision out of your hands and assume it knows better than you what is best for your child, even though they have never met your child?

And wasn't there a guy - - pretty popular, as I recall - - named Ronald Reagan who said the federal government should get out of our lives? So why is government intervening in a medical decision made by a woman's legal guardian and upheld by the courts?

Bill Frist, the Senate majority leader, knows. Frist - - who mentions at least every 15 minutes that he's a doctor - - moved the farce into the realm of the truly grotesque when, having never met or examined Terri Schiavo, having seen only highly-edited home movies of her taken by her parents, Frist made a medical diagnosis:

"Speaking more as a physician than as a U.S. Senator," Frist said from the Senate floor, he thought there was "insufficient information to conclude that Terri Schiavo is in a persistent vegetative state."

You mean all those doctors who have examined her over the past 15 years are lying or mistaken? Only the all-powerful, all-knowing Frist can make a correct medical diagnosis - - and without ever having examined the patient?

Frist, who has plenty of time to fly around the country and make speeches in preparation for his 2008 presidential campaign, apparently did not have the time to fly to Florida to see Terry Schiavo.

But he really didn't need to. Because his decision had nothing to do with medicine and everything to do with politics: the political need to curry favor with Christian conservatives, who want to keep Terri Schiavo on her feeding tube.

Many Democrats, who don't want to get caught on the "wrong" side of a "values" fight, are cowering, keeping silent or supporting the Republicans.

Fear and politics, not sense and compassion, are ruling Congress these days.

What a shock.

ROGER SIMON COLUMN
MARCH 21, 2005

CAMBRIDGE, Mass. - - Too much is going on. We are paralyzed by our choices.

Along with all the classes, seminars and lectures that take place daily at Harvard, where I am hiding out for a semester, there are speeches, symposia (yes, they talk like that up here), and workshops.

The choices are staggering. Here are some actual events that have taken place in the last few days. I am not making these up:

"The Dudleian Lecture: Memory, Salvation and Perdition. Importance and Ambiguity of Memory."

"Paradise Lost? A Critical Analysis of Homicides in Jamaica."

"The Death of Oedipus and What Happened Next."

"Workshop on Conservative and Revisionist Historiography." ( I might have gone to this if I knew what historiography was.)

"Principles of Politeness: The Reputation and Reception of Lord Chesterfield and Letters to His Son."

"State Religion and Women's Religion in Early Babylonia: The Case of Queen Shulgi-Simti." (I might have gone to this one, too, but I am so bored with Queen Shulgi-Simti. It seems like every time you turn around there is another primetime TV special on Queen Shulgi-Simti.)

"Hammer of Gold: Financial Policy and the Coming of Stalinist Industrialization."

"Born to Run? Walking and Running in Human Evolution."

"The Molecular Basis of Transduction in Zebrafish Hair Cells."

See what I mean? This is a tiny sample of what is available and it is way too much to choose between. So how do we decide what to attend?

Answer: Free food.

Yes, that is correct. Some rules apply even at Harvard: If you feed us, we will come.

Which is how I found myself at a talk by Nan Aron, president of the Alliance For Justice, "the country's premier voice for a fair and independent judiciary and a major player in the judicial nominations process," according to the press release.

(The talk was also about 20 feet from my office, another criterion I use, especially if it is snowing.)

Aron is heavily involved in educating people about the current fight over Senate rules and judicial nominations. In today's Senate it takes 60 votes, not a simple majority of 51, to approve a judicial nominee. That is because it takes 60 votes to stop a filibuster.

Angered by the Democratic blockage of some of President Bush's appointments to the bench, Senate Majority Leader Bill Frist, R-Tenn., has threatened to change the rules and make filibustering impossible on judicial nominees. This is being called the "nuclear option." All Frist needs is 51 votes to do this and the Republicans have 55 votes in the Senate.

But Senate Minority Leader Harry Reid, D-Nev., has threatened to paralyze the Senate if Frist goes ahead with the nuclear option.

"Keep in mind that federal judges are there for life," Aron said. "They are a president's legacy. William Rehnquist (Chief Justice of the United States) has served under seven presidents. Federal judges used to serve an average of 15 years. Now it is up to 24 years. That is a long time considering a president serves only four or eight years.

"A few years ago, if somebody had told me the Senate would filibuster court of appeals judges, I would not have believed it. But it is judgeships around which Democrats have decided to define themselves."

Aron named some judicial nominees she was opposed to. "You have probably never heard of them, but they would turn back the clock on environmental protection, workers' rights, and the right to choose," Aron said. "This president seeks to do harm to the rights we have come to take for granted through his judicial appointments. The Democrats have only the filibuster as a way to say no."

Aron also said that while the Republicans are portraying the Democrats as obstructionists, Democrats have blocked only 10 out of 214 of Bush's judicial nominees. "At the end of Clinton's second term, 60 of his judicial nominees had failed to have a hearing or had been blocked," she said.

Aron discussed the "nuclear option" and said it was really a way for Bush to get his Supreme Court nominees approved easily, should there be an opening. "We do expect Rehnquist to retire this June and my hunch is that Bush is trying to get other justices to retire as well, including Sandra Day O'Connor and Anthony Kennedy. We will be facing the most important fight of all of our lives."

There are two sides to this issue, of course, but the person Aron was supposed to debate got sick and couldn't show up. So we will just have to wait and hope that when he does come to Harvard, they will offer a free dinner to hear him.

And, by the way, I hope you have been paying attention. Because all this will be on the final.

ROGER SIMON COLUMN
MARCH 16, 2005

SIMON SAYS:
Does anyone still have a rumpus room?

The most President Bush can hope for out of his Social Security campaign is to make the Democrats "grasp the nettle" first and come up with their own plan for benefit cuts before Bush is forced to come up with his. And the Democrats will do this. If they are very, very stupid.

What is with all this knuckle-cracking in public? When did this become acceptable behavior? Stop it!

Niagara Falls is actually very impressive.

There are few cheeses that I don't like.

According to a Pentagon audit, Halliburton Company bought $82,000 worth of liquefied petroleum gas in Kuwait and then charged U.S. taxpayers more than $27 million to transport the gas to Iraq. Government auditors call the fee "illogical." I think I could come up with some others words like "insane" or "Why isn't somebody in handcuffs over this?"

Did the Atlanta courtroom shootings really deserve THAT much live airtime?

We all know that when China pays workers 50 cents an hour, they can make goods inexpensively and sell them cheaply in the United States. But think of the other side of the coin: Workers making 50 cents an hour are not going to be able to afford American products. How many iPods are we going to sell to people who make that little? Which is part of what the trade deficit is all about: China sells us everything from television sets to textiles, while we sell China scrap metal. No wonder our trade deficit with China is over $15 billion.

When is the last time you saw a really good ventriloquist? (And have you ever seen a ventriloquist's dummy that did not give you nightmares?)

People who don't signal their turns should be beaten with sticks.
From polltrack, a service of nationaljournal.com: "At its peak, the number of people who said the war in Iraq was worth fighting reached 70 percent at the start of the conflict in the spring of 2003; now it is at 45 percent. That figure has dropped fairly steadily since its peak, but it is up three points since December's 42 percent. And President Bush's numbers on the issue show an even more dramatic fall: Approval on his handling of the situation in Iraq -- at 75 percent in the April 2003 poll -- is now at 39 percent, an all-time low for the ABC/Post survey."

If there is summer stock, how come there's no winter, spring or fall stock?

This may not be uppermost on your mind, but the Taiwan Relations Act of 1979 does not commit the United States to the military defense of Taiwan. People just think it does.

You're pretty old if you can remember when pop-tops actually came off the can.

I'll bet you've never seen a real washboard in your life. (Unless you play in a zydeco band, that is.)

Odd but true: If you are walking along and your arms are full and you are trying to balance objects, just sing as you go and you will not drop a thing. Don't ask me why.

How on earth do woodpeckers avoid headaches? It would drive me crazy.

Do mothers still say: "Stop that! You could put somebody's eye out!"?

From Adam Nagourney's story in the New York Times, March 16: "Some associates of Mr. Kerry said Mr. Edwards had privately assured Mr. Kerry that he would not run for president in 2008 if Mr. Kerry decided to run again, a promise similar to that made by Senator Joseph I. Lieberman to Al Gore after the 2000 presidential campaign." But Lieberman was nuts to make that pledge to Gore and Edwards would be nuts to make that pledge to Kerry.

There is nothing wrong and a lot right with plastic wine corks. (Yes, plastic comes from petrochemicals, but it saves cork oak trees.)

A lot of people are willing to leave a penny, but most people are too chicken to take a penny.

Could the Ten Commandments be considered the first blog?

ROGER SIMON COLUMN
MARCH 14, 2005

CAMBRIDGE, Mass. - - I am watching a TV reporter tell me about the 10 fastest-growing states in America.

Nevada is first and California is tenth, but that is not the real purpose of the story.

No, the real purpose of the story is to point out that nine of the 10 - - all except California - - are Red States and how this is more bad news for the Democrats.

The reporter solemnly tells me that the Red States have picked up 7.5 million voters, while Blue States have picked up only 4.6 million.

To which I have only one reaction: So what?

Is there something in the air or water in Red States that automatically converts people from the Democratic to the Republican party? (Or vice versa?) Do people really say, "Well, I've just left Illinois and I'm living in Nevada now, so I better vote Republican."

Sure, people do tend to be influenced by the people around them, but people are far more likely to vote for reasons other than what state they live in. And regional differences are not what they once were in America.

For one thing, Americans are a highly mobile people. In 2003, according to the U.S. Census, some 7.6 million Americans moved from one state to another. This tends to break down regional differences, which have been eroding at least since the construction of the interstate highway system, if not before.

Much too much has been made out of Red States vs. Blue States in America. It is a handy way to think about some political matters, but it is not proof of some great chasm in the country.

In fact, the United States is a highly unified country, not just socially, but politically. There is no viable party of the extreme left or the extreme right in America. There is no significant communist or anarchist party on the left and no party advocating a military coup on the right.

I try to avoid sports metaphors, but as one political analyst said some years ago, "In America, politics is played between the 40 yard lines."

We play in the middle of the field. We avoid political extremes. The two parties battle to shove the ball a few yards one way or the other.

There are also some people - - hard as this is for some to believe - - who look at the two parties and don't see a whole lot of difference.

And maybe that's why the last two presidential elections were so close: Not because the country is so deeply divided, but because the choices aren't really much of a choice.

In 2000, the two major candidates "battled" over how to spend vast (and imaginary) surpluses. In 2004, the two major candidates "battled" over an Iraq war that both wanted to continue.

Sure, there were real differences between the candidates on other issues and there are real differences between the parties, but a great divide in this country? A vast gulf? A chasm?

I don't buy it.

And let's keep in mind what many people who live in the supercharged political world that I live in often forget: Many, many Americans simply don't care much about politics at all.

They don't pay much attention to politics and find all this Red State vs. Blue State stuff irrelevant to their lives.

And they may be right.

ROGER SIMON COLUMN
MARCH 9, 2005

CAMBRIDGE, Mass. - - Rarely has a political concept caught on as quickly as the Red State/Blue State metaphor.

Virtually everyone understands the simple code: Red State means Republican and conservative. Blue state means Democratic and liberal.

But, of course, it means much, much more:

Shortly after Election Day, an anonymous e-mail began circulating around the nation:

"Not to worry. With the Blue States in hand, the Democrats have firm control of 80 percent of the world's fresh water, over 90 percent of our pineapple and lettuce, 93 percent of the artichoke production, 95 percent of American's export quality wines, 90 percent of all cheese production, most of the U.S. low-sulfur coal, all living redwoods, sequoias and condors, all the Ivy and Seven Sister schools, plus Stanford, Caltech and MIT. We can live simply but well.

"The Red States, on the other hand, now have to cope with 92 percent of all U.S. mosquitoes, 99 percent of all Southern Baptists, 100 percent of all Televangelists, Rush Limbaugh, Bob Jones University, Clemson and the University of Georgia. A high price to pay for controlling the presidency."

There is something both vaguely amusing and vaguely alarming about this e-mail (comparing Southern Baptists to mosquitoes is certainly uncalled for) but it accepts as fact the notion there is a great divide in America, a gulf, a polarization, a Red State/Blue state division.

But how divided are we really?

The Red States/Blue State obsession - - and I think both politicians and the media are truly obsessed with it - - didn't really occur until the presidential election of 2000, the disputed results in Florida, and the rare phenomenon of the popular vote winner not winning in the Electoral College and, therefore, not becoming president.

There have long been battleground states, but now, with the acceptance of the Red/Blue concept many see a chasm: a deeply divided America.

When the Democrats lost the presidency again last year and lost ground in the House and Senate, something akin to panic gripped the party.

Something must be done! The message must be changed! Or maybe not. Maybe it wasn't the message, maybe the Democrats just needed to get out the vote better, raise even more money and stop letting the other side define them.

But how bad, really, was the Democratic loss? And has an actual, long-term political realignment begun in this country?

In the past, long-term realignments have come at moments of great crisis: the Civil War realigns support to the Republican party as the party of union, defending the Constitution and anti-slavery. The Great Depression, the worst economic collapse in the history of the modern industrial world, leads to the election of Franklin Roosevelt and his Democratic alliance of labor, blacks and other minorities, some farmers, those on relief and intellectuals.

But has there been another dramatic re-alignment in the country recently, making the continued election of Republican presidents virtually inevitable? And, if so, what caused it? Sept. 11? A culture gap? Both? More?

Stay tuned.

ROGER SIMON COLUMN
MARCH 7, 2005

CAMBRIDGE, Mass. - - During his long career, Ralph Nader not only became one of America's leading consumer advocates, but something of a cultural icon: He hosted "Saturday Night Live" and appeared on "Sesame Street."

Although some large corporations despised him, he was respected and even revered by many.

And then he ran for president.

Even though his third-party bid in 2000 did not do particularly well from an historical perspective (he got only 2.74 percent of the popular vote), it did, many believe, make George W. Bush president.

Nader received 97,488 votes in Florida or 180 times the difference between Bush and Al Gore. And Nader stated, both in his book "Crashing the Party," and also on his website: "In the year 2000, exit polls reported that 25% of my voters would have voted for Bush, 38% would have voted for Gore and the rest would not have voted at all."

Nader ran again in 2004, but was not a factor in any state and got only 0.4 percent of the vote.

He recently came to Harvard's Institute of Politics, where I am hiding out for a semester, and spoke to my weekly study group. He was frank, challenging and surprised me very much when he told a personal anecdote or two (he is an intensely private individual.)

He began by telling the students: "You will really not get anything out of your Harvard education, unless you develop a sense of social indignation."

Nader recalled how, as a student at Princeton in the early Fifties, he noticed dead and dying birds all over campus after the school had sprayed DDT on the grounds.

Nader took one of the dead birds to the school newspaper and told them what he had noticed. The newspaper was not interested.

Nader recalled how the editor he talked to had his feet up on his desk and languidly told Nader that Princeton "had the smartest people in the world" working there and obviously would not use DDT unless it was completely safe.

"This," Nader told the students, "proves you can be bright, but not have the curiosity to ask questions."

Nader, who was a good student, went on graduate from Harvard Law School, but he told the students, "When I got out of Princeton and Harvard, I felt cheated. What the hell did I learn? Don't you go through your four years of university without a passion to correct some social injustice."

When I asked Nader where he got his own sense of social injustice, he told a story from his childhood in Connecticut: He was a young boy and heard his father complain how a rabbit was eating the family garden "to shreds."

So young Ralph waited for that rabbit, spotted it, grabbed a rock and took off after it. The rabbit froze and Nader stood over it with the rock. "And then I walked away," Nader said. "To this day, I can't stand cruelty."

He spent most of the 90 minutes he spent with the students answering their questions and talking about serious issues.

So I made my final question this one: "What does Ralph Nader do for fun?"

"If you love what you do, it's fun," he said. But he did admit to some normal human activities like "talking with friends, going to dinner and the movies."

"I also like to walk in the woods," he said.

Ralph Nader? Who knew?

ROGER SIMON COLUMN
MARCH 02, 2005

CAMBRIDGE, Mass. - - All the fellows at the Institute of Politics at Harvard, which is where I am hiding out for a semester, are assigned six undergraduate students to keep us out of trouble.

This is voluntary on their part and in return for all their hard work, they don't even get course credits.

So in order to both reward and shamelessly exploit them, I offered to let them write guest columns when they had something unique to say, and if they managed to say it well.

Robert Rogers fulfills both requirements. He is 19, a sophomore majoring in economics from Harrison, N.Y., and a director of the Franklin Afterschool Enrichment Program, a tutoring program for underprivileged children in the Dorchester section of Boston. Here is his piece:

By Robert Rogers

As a college student, I don't pay much attention to those dire,
overblown warnings about how my generation will not be prepared for the
job market that awaits us. But I am sensing that there is a scary trend
developing in our nation's political psyche for which my peers and I
will be woefully unprepared: the notion that one misstatement - - just one
little gaffe - - deserves to end a career.

There are four recent examples of this ridiculously unfair standard in
action, the most recent occurring with Harvard President Larry Summers.

A large faction of the faculty is calling for his resignation, because
Summers commented that differences in "intrinsic aptitude" might explain
why so many fewer women than men are top science professors. Granted,
the remarks were sexist. But they were off the cuff comments being
hashed out at a closed-door economists' conference, and he apologized.

Do we now believe that one insensitive remark in the midst of 20 years
of public speaking is a firing offense? So much for academic freedom of
speech.

Then there's CNN's Executive Vice President Eason Jordan, who was forced
to resign for suggesting that U.S. military forces in Iraq had targeted
some of the journalists who have been killed there. Now, clearly, that
statement is outrageous.

But no momentary slip of the tongue should bury a career. Put aside the fact that Jordan immediately backtracked from his remarks and apologized profusely. One gaffe should not negate 23 years of loyalty and dedication to an organization.

Let he who has never said anything he regrets cast the first stone.

Howard Dean went from being merely up against the ropes to being
dismissed as a wacko because of his fiery battle cry the night of the
Iowa caucuses.

A genius at grassroots organizing who had galvanized his
party was dismissed because of one bad impression of former WWF star Ric
Flair - - what a petty thing to bring someone down.

And for the sake of bipartisanship, let's not forget how unfairly Trent Lott was treated. He was forced out of the Majority Leader position for making kind remarks
to an old man at his last birthday party. Speaking at Strom Thurmond's
100th, he said that if Thurmond had been elected president, "we wouldn't
have had all these problems over these years."

Of course the statement was foolish - - it only makes sense if you consider civil rights one of our problems - - but should a man be forced out of his job for neglecting
political correctness when giving a birthday tribute to a retiring
colleague?

The reason that the "one gaffe and you're out policy" troubles me when I consider the career prospects of my generation is that our college academic careers are marked by zero accountability for any words we speak in the classroom.

The dirty little secret of a humanities and social sciences college education is that any statement that pours out of a student's mouth is hailed as a constructive insight, no matter how wrong or uninsightful.

In an effort to make everybody feel special and smart, academia has adopted a policy of knee-jerk acceptance of any answer a student gives in class, thus encouraging students to speak without thinking.

My friends and I often joke about how, whenever we fall behind on our
readings, have no fears, because our vague, meaningless statements in
class will elicit an, "Absolutely, that's an excellent point" from the professor.

How can you expect us to survive in this brave new workplace
in which one misstatement makes you toast?

You can't let the vocal tract run on auto pilot for four years and then suddenly expect people to carefully consider every word they say upon graduation. It just won't work.

An overnight transformation in college teaching style is not realistic.
So, why don't we just change our expectations and admit that we're all
human and we all make mistakes.

We all can think of many things we've said in our lives that we wish we could take back. Let's be a little more forgiving of human fallibility.

Because, if we aren't, my generation won't make it through our first days on the job.

We've had a couple of glitches on this site recently that I wanted to apologize for.

Firstly, the e-mail function, whereby you can get the column sent to your e-mail address, hasn't worked for a few weeks, but is now fixed. Just go to the box to the right, enter your e-mail address, you'll get an e-mail from me, a prompt, and the column will be sent to you twice a week.

Secondly, we've had to end the commentary function on the site, which I regret. I greatly enjoyed reading your comments and your conversations with each other and if that function can be restored, we will do so without delay.

Thanks for your patience.