I regret that this is turning into an anti-Mitt Romney blog, only because there are so many other worthwhile things to rant about in the world and so many other injustices to expose.

But Mitt Romney is just too much of a tool to let alone.

Today, the Globe reported that Mitt had joined the NRA only six months ago, reversing gun control positions he'd held when he ran as a moderate Republican for the US Senate in 1994. Back then, the "good" Mitt supported registration waiting periods and a ban on assault weapons. The "lifetime membership" he bought is already raising eyebrows, as more long-standing gun advocates are questioning is motives for joining the movement only months before declaring his presidential ambitions, all the while pandering to other conservative causes as well.

I'm not sure where having AK-47s floating around neighborhood playgrounds counts in the "well regulated militia" part of the Second Amendment, but, if Mitt and his fellow gun crazies really want to play, maybe they should go hunting with Dick Cheney. Since the NRA seems to be doing such a bang-up job of educating people about how not to shoot other people in the face, the rest of us will just have to hope that they'll take each other out before long.

It's also quite funny (and loathsome) that Mitt Romney is so intent on making portraying himself as a leader capable of escaping the influence of the Mormon cult leadership that he seems to have forgotten Church teachings. When George Stephanopoulous asked Mitt what Muslims might think of the Mormon belief that Christ will return in the Second Coming to New Jerusalem (somewhere in Missouri) and reign for 1,000 years, Mitt replied defensively: "that doesn't happen to be a doctrine of my church."

Oh, really?

"Our belief is just as it says in the Bible, that the messiah will come to Jerusalem, stand on the Mount of Olives, and that the Mount of Olives will be the place for the great gathering and so forth," Mitt elaborated.

"..And so forth"?

Doctrine and Covenants 57:2 documents a revelation to Joseph Smith in Jackson County, Missouri, where God supposedly proclaimed that the city of Independence "is the land of promise, and the place for the city of Zion," Zion being the gathering place of the faithful Mormons after the Second Coming of Christ.

Looks like someone should stop reading NRA literature and read his own religious books instead.

The Beginning of the End

If there's any candidacy I'm more virulently opposed to than Sam Brownback's, it's Mitt Romney's.

Alas, ending months of AGONIZING suspense, this lowlife has announced that he is jumping into the GOP field.

Of course, that's not really true. Romney's been planning his entry for a while (easily tracked by when he started saying nasty things about the Commonwealth of Massachusetts while being its governor). There was a Globe cartoon that I can't find now but that most succinctly described how disingenuous this man is as a leader: Mitt is at the podium on TV proclaiming something like "I will do for all Americans what I did for the people of Massachusetts." A man and a woman sit, unimpressed, watching his speech; one of them says: "What? You'll tell anti-American jokes?" Any level-headed CEO with that kind of attitude about the organization he or she is leading knows that publicly humiliating the employees and investors does nothing to motivate change but instead causes internal confusion, resentment, and anger. But Mitt was evidently uninterested in actually creating change. He was so disinvested in Massachusetts that he announced in Michigan, his supposed home state.

My friend Seth made a good point last November that Romney was sitting out the gubernatorial election in Massachusetts not because he wanted to concentrate his efforts on winning the presidency. He could have done both; many sitting governors have gone on to campaign for and win the presidency. No, Mitt was sitting out because he knew he would get trounced by Deval Patrick because the people of Massachusetts, spurned by Mitt time and again, have come to hate him almost as much as he hates them. Such a setback would have irrevocably hurt his presidential campaign. No one seems to be paying attention to that deft little trick, however, or the fact that under Mitt's leadership the Republican Governors Association lost its largest number of governor's offices for the first time in a long time. Again, way to pull through.

There is no critiquing Mitt's campaign style. He's a very well polished man, with years of PR experienced honed at Harvard's graduate schools, at Bain Capital, and as the public persona of the Salt Lake City Olympics. He's admittedly the most conventionally presidential-looking of everything vying for the White House from either party (with a full head of hair and a wholesome, blond wife). With this one, it's all about the substance, and I'm afraid the substance's pretty ugly.

One awkward stage moment at the announcement, though. I'm no marriage counselor, but I'm pretty sure Ann's trying to hug her husband with this kiss, while Mitt's body language seems stiff and reluctant. He treats his wife like he treats Massachusetts.

How will he treat America?

It's a Girl

I'll take a brief breather from the political news to write on one of the biggest news breaks in higher education in a long time: Harvard has appointed Drew Gilpin Faust as its 28th president and the first woman in its long history to serve in that post.

As a follow-up, the Chronicle of Higher Education published an article discussing the American Council on Education's study of the lack of diversification in the president's office at U.S. colleges and universities (you can read the article here, if you have a password). That article, I think, misses the point (again).

Mostly, I was disappointed with its narrow definition of diversity among American college and university presidents. If the administration of American higher education is truly to diversify in the future, it will have to look beyond traditional paradigms of male-and-female and black-and-white.

Nowhere in the article was there mention of the rare achievements of administrators like Chang-Lin Tien and Henry Yang, both presidents of campuses in the University of California system. Tien, who was president of UC Berkeley, was the first Asian American to head a major U.S. research university. Since that breakthrough, however, news of other top appointments for Asian Americans has been scarce.

This trend is indicative of an obsession of the black-or-white racial paradigm in this country. Asian Americans lead higher education in the number of non-White students admitted, and they lead the ranks of non-White faculty members (at a measly six percent). However, when it comes to achieving the top rank at their respective colleges and universities, Asian Americans make up just 0.7 percent of presidents and chancellors in the U.S., compared to six percent for African American leaders. I am by no means arguing that "my people" deserve a larger section of the pie merely based on statistics and numbers. I am arguing that higher education has often been the leader for positive social change in this country, and that, to continue to do so, the pie must be enlarged to take advantage of the wide diversity of talent and skill in the country's pool of capable faculty and administrators.

I'm afraid that race has become something of a smokescreen in higher education administration, and to project an image of diversity colleges and universities tend to consider as the main option to a White candidate a Black candidate, even though there is no lack of other non-White candidates available. It will perhaps take a little stretch of the imagination and of institutional willingness to ensconce a non-traditional president, but imagination and courage is exactly what is needed if we intend American higher education to empower and lead our country.

Over six months ago, I wrote to the Chronicle to support the presidential candidacies of people like Denise Denton, whose tragic death reminded us all of the shortage of talented GLBT presidents and how their lonely situations make their jobs even more challenging. That letter, which was eventually picked up by the Advocate, fell on deaf ears. Drew Gilpin Faust's appointment as the president of Harvard University again brings the debate of presidential diversity to the fore.

When will we actually take the debate seriously?

As an aside, it also seems that someone who was actually attending the Obama rally has commented on my post. Which is wonderful, because I know no one who was at that rally, which means people other than my friends are reading this blog. So welcome. At the same time, I wonder how many interns have been dispatched by the campaigns across the blogosphere to search by keyword and "set the record straight." Nevertheless, I am encouraged by the debate and discourse this type of engagement will bring. Thanks for visiting; keep it comin'.

Obama's Sun Dawns

Barack Obama is in.

He announced this morning in the birthplace of Abraham Lincoln and in front of the state capital where he launched his political career only ten years ago. The frigid Midwestern temperatures meant that we couldn't really get a peek at Barack's sartorial style (and, in warmer weather, his apparently stunning physique). Barack made the unfortunate decision of announcing in a massive black overcoat, which his opponents - most notably Hillary - had avoided by launching their candidacies online and in the comfort of a warmly decorated room. The open-air ambience is a nice touch, but I would have gone with a heavier wool suit and a lot of space heaters instead of the overcoat and the scarf, which give the air of Barack as stopping through only briefly and not even having enough time to shed his outerwear and have a serious conversation about the country's future.

There is one area of political style, however, in which Barack has clearly set himself apart: his logo is brilliant.
Eschewing the dead-horse stars-and-stripes theme that his co-candidates have all chosen, Barack decided to symbolize his candidacy with a circular logo that captures all of the elements of the flag. The red-and-white stripes recall the cornfields of the Midwest whence Barack comes and that hold the key to his electoral success. The blue is, obviously, translated into a bright and hopeful sky. In the background, a bright sun, with warming tones of yellow, rises over the land as what is unmistakably dawn; there is no debate this time - unlike when Benjamin Franklin was asked of his chair in Independence Hall - whether America is rising or declining. With Barack, America is rising to a new day.
The whole logo is encapsulated in a circle that resonates with the "O" that leads Barack's last name. There are no sharp edges and no sharp points. It is clean, clear, and wholesome. Kudos to whomever designed this little subtle but powerful thing. Absolutely brilliant.

By comparison, the losers in the category include:

What is this? The 1800s? Color made its debut 50 years ago. John McCain's campaign would do well to use it. And black... A funeral for America? Dour, depressing, and aged: that's what this logo tells me about John McCain and his candidacy.



Sam's logo looks like a seventh-grader made it for a middle-school art project. Someone accidentally left on the caps lock button while typing "Brownback," perhaps under some delusion that making EVERY WORD BIG evokes power. Actually, it evokes tacky.

Better. The streamer effect with the American flag is modern, and the waves look natural (unlike Brownback's American flag). The "Hillary" looks a tad muscular, which is probably what the first serious major-party woman candidate for president wants to project. I wonder, though, what those three stars stand for, since each star on the American flag symbolizes one of the fifty states. Someone needs to think through that symbolism.

Pelosi(gh)

I haven't posted in a while, which means I've actually been productive. Shocking.

The latest flurry of chatter seems to be whether or not Nancy Pelosi deserves a big plane or an itty bitty little plane that terrorists will attack when she lands in Des Moines to refuel.

My suggestion: Don't get a big plane, Nancy. Just flap that little purple whatever-the-hell-it-is, and you'll fly away just fine.


In other news, Barack and Mitt will both probably announce in the next week. We'll catch up with their kick-off stylings then.

Cheers.