In Case You Missed It — DP April Fool’s Article
In case you missed it, the DP wrote a joke article about the Penn Democrats switching endorsements from Senator Obama to Senator Clinton. This is not true, but we enjoyed the article anyway!
The article is below — enjoy!
Issue date: 4/9/08 Section: NewsPenn Dems vote to switch endorsement
Colin Aska Kavanaugh
In an emergency meeting last night, Penn Democrats voted to revoke their March endorsement of Sen. Barack Obama (D-Ill.) in favor of Sen. Hillary Clinton (D-N.Y.).
Citing increasing unease over the Rev. Jeremiah Wright controversy - Obama’s former pastor who used offensive language to criticize American foreign policy - the organization said it felt more comfortable supporting a less-controversial and more-unifying candidate.
College sophomore Lauren Burdette, president of the Penn Dems, said Clinton’s unrelenting determination to win warranted a re-vote.
“She lied about landing in Bosnia under sniper fire, her credibility is slipping nationally, and she has no reasonable path to win the nomination,” Burdette said. “And yet, she still hasn’t quit. That’s the kind of determination that Penn students should admire.”
Many on Penn’s campus are thrilled by the re-vote, including College Republicans president Zac Byer, a College sophomore and token conservative.
“I think it’s a brilliant idea,” Byer said. “Despite the whole impeachment thing, Republicans have always loved the Clintons.”
College senior Abby Huntsman, the other token conservative on campus, agreed.
However, Penn for Obama co-president Michael Stratton, a Wharton freshman, said this was a change he couldn’t believe in.
“Obama is so handsome and speaks so well. I’m pretty sure this is an instance of reverse sexism,” Stratton said.
Even Penn for Hillary showed some resistance to the re-vote.
“We were hoping that Penn Dems would wait to endorse until after the Pennsylvania primary,” so that members would be as informed as possible before re-endorsing, said College freshman and Penn for Hillary spokesman Patrick Bauer. “But we’re cool with this, instead.”
In recent weeks, Penn Dems members started to have second thoughts about their Obama endorsement.
“The first thing that made us uneasy was the Obama campaign’s desire to register new young voters,” said College sophomore Mukul Sharma, Penn Dems vice president.
“Who wants to be harassed 12 times a day to register to vote?” Sharma said. “I don’t want to be bothered that much, but if I did I’d be supporting Obama for sure.”
Burdette agreed.
“Any candidate propelled by student activists is putting this nation at risk,” she said.
“If we didn’t re-vote, Penn Dems would be helping surrender the country to marijuana-smoking, Cheeto-eating, credit-card-toting, Starbucks-sipping students,” Burdette said. “And as a student group, we can’t let that happen.”
How disappointing. I know Hillary is the only candidate with the strength and experience to bring about the change we need!
Hillary recently misspoke about her trip to Bosnia. She accurately describes the trip in her book, Living History:
‘Due to reports of snipers in the hills around the airstrip, we were forced to cut short an event on the tarmac…’ “Security conditions were constantly changing in the former Yugoslavia, and they had recently deteriorated again. Due to reports of snipers in the hills around the airstrip, we were forced to cut short an event on the tarmac with local children, though we did have time to meet them and their teachers and to learn how hard they had worked during the war to continue classes in any safe spot they could find. … We were then off to the fortified American base at Tuzla, where over two thousand American, Russian, Canadian, British, and Polish soldiers were encamped in a large tent city.” [Living History, p. 343]
Contemporaneous news accounts confirm that Hillary’s trip to Bosnia was a dangerous situation:
Hillary’s trip to Bosnia marked the first time since Eleanor Roosevelt that a first lady traveled to a potential combat zone. Accompanied by singer-songwriter Sheryl Crow and comedian Sinbad, Mrs. Clinton traveled to this northwestern Bosnian town on a morale-boosting tour for the 18,500 U.S. troops participating in the NATO-led peacemaking operation. She heard a poem of peace from a Bosnian girl and praised U.S. troops for ’showing what American leadership is.’…This trip to Bosnia marks the first time since Roosevelt that a first lady has voyaged to a potential combat zone. During World War II, Roosevelt toured the devastated streets of London and the southwestern Pacific, bringing cheer to U.S. troops. [Washington Post, 3/26/96]
Hillary was ‘protected by sharpshooters’ in a ‘military zone’ when she visited troops in Bosnia. “Protected by sharpshooters, Hillary Rodham Clinton swooped into a military zone by Black Hawk helicopter Monday to deliver a personal ‘thank you, thank you, thank you’ to U.S. troops. ‘They’re making a difference,’ the first lady said of the 18,500 Americans working as peacekeepers in Bosnia. Mrs. Clinton became the first presidential spouse since Eleanor Roosevelt to make such an extensive trip into what can be considered a hostile area, though others have visited hot spots…” [Charleston Gazette, 3/26/96]