Controversy at Lehigh

Jay's Kinda Weekly Rant:
I don't know how many of you watch the Fox News Channel. If you do, then you'll know what I'm about to talk about. If not, there was a decent article done on the matter by Lehigh's school newspaper here: http://www.bw.lehigh.edu/story.asp?ID=17115 Read that, and then come back here.


Done? Ok, let's continue. As the article says, the College Republicans at Lehigh are mounting a media campaign to try and pressure the administration to move the artwork from the Maginnes Gallery (the department that contains such majors as political science, international relations, history, etc.) to the Zoellner Art Center. I'm a member of the College Democrats, and our position is that Maginnes is the most appropriate place for it because, by being in that building, it is more likely to be seen by the people who such a piece of art would matter to, people who are in to politics. The main reason for the controversy has been that people are interpreting the piece literally: "My God! Bush is groping that woman! The artist is charging that Bush is a womanizer! Lies! Liberal bias!" As the artist himself says, the piece is meant to be a metaphor for how Bush is "groping" the world, feeling his way around without any clear direction. Personally, I think the artist is simplifying the situation a bit, but it's still an interesting criticism that is not the garbage the College Republicans would have you believe it is. The College Repubs. also have other problems with the tableaus, but the article does a decent job of covering their other charges, so I won't try to address all of them here. I'll probably be writing a detailed article about this subject for the next College Democrats newsletter, so I'll go into more depth then.

Anyway, back to Fox News. About half-an-hour ago, on The O'Reilly Factor, Bill O'Reilly interviewed the presidents of the College Democrats and the College Republicans. From the very beginning, "Mr. No-Spin Zone" spun the issue, calling it (and this is from the summary on his website) "grossly offensive" and charging that the "conservatives [are] under attack on college campuses". As so many have, he was interpreting the art literally, contrary to what the artist intended. Then, when he interviewed the two, Neal (the College Repubs. president) was given significantly more time than Mike (the College Dems. president) and, on the website, it only mentions Neal. When Mike tried to explain that it was a metaphor, Bill responded sarcastically (not verbatim, but close), "Oh, metaphor! I see. Well, obviously, you're much smarter than me." and ended the segment, not allowing Mike any chance to explain what he meant. Classic Bill. Apparently, in the No-Spin Zone, Bill reports, AND Bill decides. Hopefully, somehow, I'll find a transcript of that segment so that I can present the episode more accurately, but I've tried to keep from exaggerating as much as possible (if any of you have seen Bill before, you'll recognize what I've described as well within Bill's normal behavior on his show).

So, I'm pretty angry about this (though a lot better than during and after the segment, at which point I was jumping around and shaking my fist at the TV), which is why I wrote this up: to vent. Also, if any of you actually did see the show, I hope I gave you a different and, I believe, clearer perspective of the situation here at Lehigh. If I end up writing the article, I'll post it on my webspace and put the link in my next rant.