To the Editor:
Although a five-page history essay, the prospect of an unhurried dinner and a 9:00 meeting of the Tufts Democrats conspired to keep me from attending author Robert Stacy McCain's Tufts Republicans-sponsored talk this Tuesday, I feel compelled to respond to his charges, which were repeated without challenge in Mr. Pranai Cheroo's Daily article of Sept. 28.
Before I do, however, I'd like to express sympathy for Mr. McCain, who fears that people will dismiss his recent book as a "snark-fest, filled with ideological attacks."
In our sorely divided present climate, it would indeed be sad that anyone would come to that conclusion based on, say, the book's cover, which presents a jailed, leering, filthy and red-eyed donkey smoking a cigar. As only a handful of political books are ever published in the months leading up to national elections, the American public should surely rush to embrace disinterested studies such as Mr. McCain's.
Although Mr. McCain was not reported to have flat-out accused the Democratic Party of being more corrupt than its Republican counterpart, that implication is loud and clear.
Unmentioned in Mr. Cheroo's write-up is the fact that former House Majority Leader Tom DeLay (R-Texas) was obliged not only to forfeit his position as House Majority Leader last November, but also to resign his very office this April due to a criminal investigation.
Seemingly forgotten is California Republican Randy "Duke" Cunningham, who was sentenced in March to more than eight years in prison after leaving the Congress less than a year ago. And ignored is the fact that our very president has been caught paying political columnists to champion its right-wing policies to skeptical Americans at their own expense.
While there may have been few if any critics of Mr. McCain's charges attending the talk (and bear in mind that the Tufts Democrats were scheduled to meet less than an hour later, making our potential participation difficult), readers of The Tufts Daily surely deserved at least one counter-example to the five allegedly corrupt Democratic officials cited in Mr. Cheroo's News piece.
Matthew Diamante
Tufts sophomore
