Scanning The (Yale Daily) News

Interesting cross-section of stuff in today's YDN opinion page. First, my old nemesis Mike Slater is back in print with one of the dumbest political neologisms I've ever seen ("ProCon," which stands for progressive conservative, even though it looks like "foragainst"). I became convinced that I need to stop tilting at windmills when I read "After Bush's brilliant State of the Union address...." and "I've never heard a president reach out for constructive bipartisan discussion as much as Bush did last week."

Next up, a jointly written column by Eve Fairbanks and Josh Bendor, whose main point I concur with, but which relied on bizarre usages of singular first person pronouns. (E.g., "By the time my Wednesday "Introduction to Comparative Politics" section rolled around, I'd had three days to imagine the excitement in the discussion we'd undoubtedly have about the Iraqi election.") What?

Last, Keith Urbahn has a piece on the JAG ban in the law school. While I mostly disagree with his conclusions, I have to say good for him for writing this:

If there's an issue that nearly all politically active students from across Yale's political spectrum can agree on, it's gay rights. Even we "tyrants" of the campus right believe that denying legal rights to those with differing sexual orientations is fundamentally wrong. The U.S. military's "don't ask, don't tell" policy is no exception: It is constitutionally questionable, strategically irresponsible and morally unjust. It's a policy that must be -- and inevitably will be -- changed.

I think that's right morally and right factually---and it's why we should endure the wave of Dobsonism in the GOP confident in the knowledge that it will eventually crash.

I think Keith is wrong, however, in arguing that Yale Law School's freedom of association is not infringed upon by recruiters meeting with students off campus grounds. If it's true that the Solomon Amendment does constitute an infringement on YLS's freedom of association, that is surely not obviated by changing the setting for recruitment.