id like to know what you thought when he posed the following proposition:

“Make it a hundred… That’d be fine with me as long as Americans are not being injured or harmed or wounded or killed. That’s fine with me, I hope it would be fine with you if we maintain a presence in a very volatile part of the world where Al Qaeda is training and recruiting and equipping and motivating people every single day.”

when i watched the video, i was wondering if the audience was at all confused by this obviously lopsided expectation. it sounded to me like he was saying, “its fine if we stay indefinitely as long as no american is hurt, i hope its fine with you if we stay… in a very hostile part of our world where terrorists are at work daily.” needless to say, the two clauses of that sentence dont seem to me like they can be reconciled. i felt as though he was downplaying the war and trying to hold on to the element of fear simultaneously.

what are your thoughts on that?

Gone are the days when the only way a politician could get onto campus was as a guest lecturer, as open as any other to the intellectual scrutiny of the students. Most importantly, there were no cameras or reporters to posture for, leaving whoever it might be alone with the students in what was, ostensibly, a mutual pursuit of wisdom.

Of course, it didn’t always turn out that way - anyone who’s ever heard of Pat Buchanan’s somewhat embarrassing appearance at the school knows that political celebrity is not awarded based upon any sort of intellectual merit. But then, that realization itself serves to reinforce the need for the kind of education that Thomas More College offers.

Contrast this with allowing a politician on campus merely to spout his personal message - a message designed and modified so often by the kind of sophistry that generations of TMC students have been taught to despise. There is neither any intellectual nor educational merit in such an exercise. All it does for the school is serve to identify it emphatically with a particular political ideology.

That this is becoming the norm for the school now is a sad thing indeed.”

This quote comes from http://thomaemorae.blogspot.com/ which appears to be an alumni page and raised a few questions in my mind about Mr. Jeff Nelson. I’m not a particular fan of Romney, I must admit, but I must question what an endorsement from this school’s relatively new President means. I’ve poked around a few networks, including wordpress and what I can reach in FaceBook. A growing discontent with the former ISI admin, Jeff Nelson, includes accusations against his VP, who recently used false info to get a FaceBook account and used it to punish students based on actions off the campus and in their personal lives (they even have t-shirts: http://www.cafepress.com/jakgetar69). I should note I haven’t the kind of credentials to verify the attacks myself, so if someone from the press could get a comment and look into this it seems like there’s at least something wrong lurking in an otherwise respectable looking institution. If this typifies, or even shows an acceptable action, by Nelson’s standards, what would his endorsed candidate’s presidency do in the private sector and rights like free speech, free association and the generally ecumenical tone which America was founded upon?

Democrats will be
1.Edwards
2.Biden
3.Richardson
(Obama and Clinton will shock the pollsters by coming in 4th and 5th).

In NH, GOP, it will be
1.McCain
2. Romney
3.Guiliani

Democrats will be
1.Edwards
2.Biden
3.Obama

Thanks for the correction! Let me know if I’ve made many more mistakes (oh the shame!)