(letters)
DIALOGUE
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X]]X`ij d[ jdXcc ki`Y\j by James Tobin
We welcome your thoughts, opinions, and ideas regarding lsamagazine. Letters may be published in the magazine and/or on our website, but we cannot print or personally respond to all letters received. Letters may be edited for length or clarity. Opinions expressed in “LSA Letters” do not necessarily reflect those of lsamagazine, the College, or the University of Michigan. All correspondence should be sent to: Editor, lsamagazine, Suite 5000, 500 South State Street, Ann Arbor, MI 481091382. You can also email us at lsamagazine@umich.edu. Please include your name, address, and graduation year.
4 n LSA spring 2009
Christopher Wassink (’88) Professor Mebane responds to both letters: The work regarding the 2000 election actually appears in two separate articles. The “Wrong Man is President!” analysis looked at over-voted ballots and showed that if better technology had been used to tabulate votes, Gore would have won by more than 35,000 votes. A court order to modify the recount that was happening might have produced a correct outcome. Instead, the Supreme Court terminated the proceedings. A Democratic National Committee study I worked on in '. 2005 concluded that the many election administration problems in Ohio did not change the 2004 election outcome. Nonetheless, several attempts by the Ohio The Fall 2008 Secretary of State to suppress voters issue was excep- were stopped only by court order, tional. It included and malfeasance by several election was proven in successful a broad spectrum officials prosecutions. It is indeed unfortunate of fascinating peo- that some now claim that conspiraple, clear and cap- cies explain every election result they may not like. The available evidence tivating reading, generally refutes that. But election and a variety of administration in the United States intriguing subjects. remains far from perfect.
(Left) U.S. President George W. Bush and former Israeli Prime Minister Ehud Olmert in Israel.
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Let us know what you think!
After years of disengagement, the Bush Administration seems bent on brokering an Israeli-Palestinian peace accord before President George W. Bush leaves office. But could such an ambitious plan do more harm than good? In his new book, The Much Too Promised Land, alumnus Aaron David Miller puts the Bush Administration’s attitude toward the Middle East into decades of context, and plots the complex and tangled roadmap to peace in the Middle East.
Your “Election Forensics” article echoes charges from the hysterical left that the 2004 presidential election in Ohio was stolen by voter suppression and fraud. In fact, the U.S. Civil Rights commission investigated this election and in a November 12, 2004 report found no evidence of any fraud or vote suppression.
In your piece titled “The Affairs of Small Tribes,” a graphic was included that detailed how the United Nations Relief and Works Agency (UNRWA) has continued to raise the number of Palestinian refugees since 1948. However, your article failed to mention that the UNRWA has manipulated its definition of the term “refugee” to unfairly inflate the number of refugees in an attempt to discredit Israel and its policies. The best yet! UNRWA’s definition differs from that Sheila McAlinden (’68) At first I was taken aback by your of the United Nations High Comcomic-book version of the story of missioner for Refugees, the body Ralph Baldwin (“The Face of the charged with helping refugees from other conflicts Moon”). After reading it, I was moved by the poiaround the world, by including people who left the gnancy of this story and its connection to my own conflict area on their own free will, people who had research. The Baldwin story was new to me but the lived in the conflict area for a short period of time, message it sends is familiar to the history of science, and the descendants of the people of these statuses. where nearly all breakthroughs are denied by the Justin Benson (’08) established experts until they die. Although you’ve presented the story as one of victory through perAccording to the “Election Forensics” article, professeverance, I see it more as a tragedy of intellectual sor Walter Mebane “tested” the vote in Palm Beach prejudice that limited a brilliant scientist’s career. in the 2000 election and concluded that “there were Richard B. Firestone (’67) about 2,000” votes for Buchanan that should have gone to Gore. Based on this extremely limited analysis, Mebane penned a paper in 2004 with the definiCorrection: Our “Student CEOs” article credited the genesis of tive title, “The Wrong Man is President!” In doing so, Eatblue.com to LSA seniors Matt Lerner and Nick Farinella. But Mebane showed his biased point of view and comClint Wallace (’04) wrote to tell us that he and classmates Jake Cohen (’04), Scott Meves (’04), and Adam Linkner (’04) founded pletely dismissed the role of the U.S. Supreme Court. Fred Spike (’69)
Eatblue.com in 2002. After graduation, they transformed Eatblue.com into Ugrub.com, then sold the company to YNot advertising in 2005. YNot oversaw the re-launching of Eatblue.com at the University of Michigan and that’s when Lerner and Farinella subsequently became involved. We apologize for the error.