Spring Break
Looking Back On UConn's Fall 2006
Brandon Nadeau
Issue date: 12/8/06 Section: Commentary
Finals are next week, and with their arrival, The Daily Campus shuts down for the semester. So I have one last chance to comment on the year that was.
Despite how much we want to deny this fact, we did not, in fact, destroy the Republican machine with the recent election. For over 10 years, the Republican party has dominated Congress, and for the past six has held the presidency. Because 30 Congressmen and 15 Senators were voted out does not mean the party is defeated. What we did to this machine was weakly swing a hammer at it and we hardly made a difference. We could have easily picked up a heavier object and smashed the thing to bits, but the Democrats ran on a non-existent platform. What about education reform? Fixing the deficit? Health care? No, instead we had a fight over whether we were losing in Iraq.
Speaking of Iraq, Robert Gates, the President's choice to succeed Donald Rumsfeld as Secretary of Defense, said Tuesday that the U.S. was indeed losing the war in Iraq. I never thought I would hear that from anyone associated with the Bush Administration. Then again, it was reported that Bush told one Iraqi leader we were not happy with their slow progress. We may not have destroyed the Republican machine, but we have caused a sea change in the president's course in Iraq. He's now supporting phased withdrawal and is willing to set an estimated goal for Iraq to begin to be able to police itself (June, 2007). The question is how much of this is just political rhetoric and how much of it is honest?
Two people have been shot over Sony's PlayStation 3 - one in line at a Wal-Mart near my hometown, the other in his apartment by the cops when they came to seize the PlayStations he had stolen. It turns out the guy who got shot in Putnam was unemployed and had no health insurance but was going to get three PS3s and ended up with another one thanks to Wal-Mart. Now he owes hundreds of thousands of dollars in medical bills that he can't afford. He should probably look into getting a job at some point so maybe next time something like this happens he will be too busy working to get shot in a line for a game system. Can you imagine him trying to talk to someone he just met? "Hey, what do you do for a living?" "Oh, I'm unemployed, but I have a side business getting shot waiting for game systems."
Despite how much we want to deny this fact, we did not, in fact, destroy the Republican machine with the recent election. For over 10 years, the Republican party has dominated Congress, and for the past six has held the presidency. Because 30 Congressmen and 15 Senators were voted out does not mean the party is defeated. What we did to this machine was weakly swing a hammer at it and we hardly made a difference. We could have easily picked up a heavier object and smashed the thing to bits, but the Democrats ran on a non-existent platform. What about education reform? Fixing the deficit? Health care? No, instead we had a fight over whether we were losing in Iraq.
Speaking of Iraq, Robert Gates, the President's choice to succeed Donald Rumsfeld as Secretary of Defense, said Tuesday that the U.S. was indeed losing the war in Iraq. I never thought I would hear that from anyone associated with the Bush Administration. Then again, it was reported that Bush told one Iraqi leader we were not happy with their slow progress. We may not have destroyed the Republican machine, but we have caused a sea change in the president's course in Iraq. He's now supporting phased withdrawal and is willing to set an estimated goal for Iraq to begin to be able to police itself (June, 2007). The question is how much of this is just political rhetoric and how much of it is honest?
Two people have been shot over Sony's PlayStation 3 - one in line at a Wal-Mart near my hometown, the other in his apartment by the cops when they came to seize the PlayStations he had stolen. It turns out the guy who got shot in Putnam was unemployed and had no health insurance but was going to get three PS3s and ended up with another one thanks to Wal-Mart. Now he owes hundreds of thousands of dollars in medical bills that he can't afford. He should probably look into getting a job at some point so maybe next time something like this happens he will be too busy working to get shot in a line for a game system. Can you imagine him trying to talk to someone he just met? "Hey, what do you do for a living?" "Oh, I'm unemployed, but I have a side business getting shot waiting for game systems."
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