Word came around April 10 that Dubya would deliver the commencement address at Furman. At first, I thought it might be because Bob Jones University was already booked. But the Greenville News explained that the credit goes to Mark Sanford, South Carolina's LIRC (that's Libertarian-in-Republican-clothing) governor, who took a degree from Furman in 1983. He's the same Mark Sanford who was featured as one of America's five worst governors in Time Magazine three years ago.
Furman spokesman Vince Moore said it would mark the first time that a sitting president has visited the campus in its 182-year history. South Carolina Gov. Mark Sanford, a 1983 Furman graduate and the 2002 graduation speaker, played a key role in the arrangements, Moore said.
Though the Upstate often votes as a bloc -- reminiscent of the old Soviet bloc, where there was only one line: the party line -- there appears to be a small group of thinkers, educators, moderates and others who thought this announcement was a bad idea. So bad, they said, that on May 12 they published a petition, signed by more than 200 good people, that reads as a fair first draft of the Bush legacy:
Under ordinary circumstances it would be an honor for Furman University to be visited by the President of the United States. However, these are not ordinary circumstances. In the spirit of open and critical review that is the hallmark of both a free democracy and an institution of higher learning, we, the undersigned members of the Furman University community, object to the following actions of the Bush administration:
* Claiming a linkage between Iraq and 9-11, and exaggerating the threat of weapons of mass destruction, to justify a new and morally questionable strategy of "pre-emptive warfare" against Iraq - a country that did not attack us and posed no immediate international threat;
* Classifying war prisoners as "detained nonmilitary combatants" to permit their detention and interrogation in violation of our own laws and standards of human decency;
* Sowing fear and using "threat levels" to side-step the Constitution and justify the erosion of individual liberties, such as challenging the Fourth Amendment (wiretapping without authorization of law) and the First Amendment (denying access to information and restricting dissent to "free speech zones");
* Suppressing or ignoring empirical evidence that contradicts administration ideology, such as denying global warming and then obstructing progress on reducing greenhouse gases while favoring billions in tax breaks and subsidies to oil companies that are earning record profits;
* Installing lobbyists for the coal, timber, and mining industries as the chief officials in charge of managing and protecting our public lands;
* Encouraging reckless over-spending (creating the largest deficits in history), expanding the reach of national government into local affairs (No Child Left Behind), and increasing our involvement overseas at the expense of domestic concerns (reconstructing New Orleans).
We are ashamed of these actions of this administration. The war in Iraq has cost the lives of over 4000 brave and honorable U. S. military personnel, wounded more than 13,000 military personnel so severely that they are unable to return to duty, killed tens of thousands of innocent Iraqi civilians, will cost more than 2 trillion dollars, and has severely damaged our government's ethical and moral credibility at home and abroad. Because we love this country and the ideals it stands for, we accept our civic responsibility to speak out against these actions that violate American values.
But, seeing that the genie was out of the bottle and it was unlikely that the invitation would be rescinded, one professor even told a local television reporter that some instructors were planning a lecture series about various Bush administration policies in anticipation of his visit.
Now there's a new twist. The Spartanburg Herald-Journal reported today that a conservative student group, calling itself Conservative Students for a Better Tomorrow, has issued its own statement. The group is affiliated with the Leadership Institute , an organization based in Washington, D.C., which is likely where the student group gets its marching orders. Last month, they hosted Ann Coulter at the Furman campus.
What is the gang's message? They've created their own petition of sorts and gotten more than 350 students to sign it, "asking that administrators refuse to allow faculty members to skip graduation ceremonies in protest of President George W. Bush's visit" and asking the university to take the faculty's petition off its website.
So here seems to be the chain of events. Mark Sanford invites Dubya to speak at Sanford's alma mater, and Dubya agrees. Sanford gets the president of Furman to swing the formal invitation from the senior class leadership. When it's announced, thoughtful members of the faculty mull over what's the right thing to do, and they determine that a signed petition outlining clear reasons for protest is the answer. The university receives it and links the petition to its website. It gets media coverage. Then the Republican student group senses that these left-leaning -- they may as well be Communist, right? -- faculty members may try to get out of attending commencement altogether, which defeats the whole purpose. If Guantanamo and Abu Ghraib have taught us anything, it's that torture is predicated upon captivity. If your prey aren't held captive, there's no torture.
The only problem with the Sanford-Bush-Furman captivity-and-torture proposal is that there will be so many witnesses. And there will likely be public protests. Even ones at the far edges of Dubya's sphere that day, out in the "free speech zones," will get media attention.
But it looks like that the "too many witnesses" problem has been solved too.
There will be no public access to President Bush’s May 31 commencement address at Furman University’s 17,000-seat Paladin Stadium, Furman officials said today.
Attendance will be restricted to ticketed family members of the approximately 650 graduates, current students and graduates, faculty, staff and an assortment of dignitaries, said Furman spokesman Vince Moore.
Approximately 10,000 tickets will be issued, he said.
The presidential visit has raised temperatures on and off campus and Moore said a protest site will be set aside on campus, "visible, but not so visible that graduates and their families will be bothered by it."
At least one group of people is excited to have Dubya in South Carolina that weekend.
Bush’s visit to Greenville falls on the same weekend as the state Republican Party’s convention in Columbia. There was no immediate indication whether Bush would add an appearance there, but state GOP chairman Katon Dawson strongly hinted that plans were in the works for the president to be the keynote speaker at the Saturday morning session.
"We’ll see if we can make it work. We’re moving some times now," Dawson said.
It would be fitting, he said, because Bush sealed his 2000 nomination with South Carolina’s presidential primary, just as his presidential father did in 1988.
While Bush’s popularity has faltered nationwide amid the war in Iraq and a faltering economy, Dawson said, "He’s still and always will be a beloved figure in South Carolina."
Which says too, too much about our people -- none of it good.
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