I’ve been struggling for weeks to understand why the Collegian’s F-word editorial deriding Bush upset so many people. Well, I finally figured it out, and better still, there might be a positive outcome from this mess.
Far more shocking than the four-word editorial were the follow-on reactions. Everyone took a side, and no one took it calmly. Even the Coloradoan’s front-page headline—no place for editorializing—hollered that Collegian editor J. David McSwane didn’t apologize, as if that were expected. An opposing headline, “McSwane shows resolve in facing critics,” would be no more biased. Meanwhile, over at the Collegian, the headline was ebullient: “Editorial sparks national uproar.” McSwane later referred to the days following the incident as “hell.” Hmmm, I think he had a spring in his step throughout.
Why did we get so bent out of shape about this? Pretend that Walter Cronkite, a highly respected American, ran an editorial in the New York Times under the headline, “Damn your intransigence on Iraq, Mr. Bush!” Cronkite’s audacity and word choice would not make the news. Granted, McSwane chose a different, nastier word, but can that explain the hubbub? Veep Cheney used the very same word—on the floor of the US Senate, no less—and lived to rule another day.
No, the problem is not the word choice; the problem is McSwane. Now, I’ve never met the guy. He might be a true-blue straight shooter, just trying to do a tough job. But the reality of the man is irrelevant, because it’s trumped by the image painted by his actions. From a distance, through the filter of media and pundit, this guy is a self-aggrandizing twerp, an opportunist. He used a 100+-year-old institution to burnish his own image as muckraker supreme. He’s a lippy youngster with anti-establishment attitude, and conservatives don’t cotton to them types.
Conservatives want people to behave themselves. They don’t like it when rappers get racy, when artists blaspheme, when long-haired college professors connect 9/11 victims with Nazi leaders, when women make choices that defy the Christian God, and when kid journalists sass their elders. When people misbehave, conservatives act, and sometimes they undermine the freedoms that make us Americans.
In this very column, in the days following McSwane’s impertinence, fellow community columnist John Clarke declared, “Editor McSwane and any editorial board member who supported the Collegian editorial must be fired.” Mr. Clarke, when you would so willingly gag the press simply for being controversial, you unwittingly remind us why our American freedoms are so fragile. I guess freedoms of press, speech and religion are ok, as long as we write, speak and pray in an acceptable way.
When I recently saw a bumper sticker that said, “ACLU: Enemy of the state,” I was perplexed. The mission of the ACLU is to preserve our First Amendment, equal protection, due process and privacy rights. Why are they so polarizing? Because, sadly, many Americans just don’t understand America’s heritage.
Let’s hope this episode will teach a few more citizens that in America, the press is allowed to be profane, self-serving, sacrilegious and even childish. Maybe a few more Americans will discover the insanity of trumpeting “to spread freedom around the world” in justifying war and hegemony, while simultaneously eroding the very freedoms that make America worth fighting for.
