My sister’s German Shepherd Kendra attacks her plate of food every morning and evening. She leaves not a crumb untouched. Everything on the plate is hers by divine right, and should anyone approach while she is wolfing down her meal, they will receive a lusty growl in return.

Everything on the plate is hers. She has no thought of bipartisanship.

And this morning I read George Will’s high-toned whine that liberal Democrats outnumber conservatives on this nation’s college campuses. He thinks it unfair, and that the academic world has marginalized itself by such an orientation. And I am sure he is right, at least so far as the statistics are concerned. Just as I am sure that conservative Republicans outnumber Democrats by similar ratios at corporate campuses throughout the United States. You don’t hear Democrats whining that not enough liberal viewpoints are represented in American business. They simply accept the fact that people who place the dollar above the human being are more likely to be found in the business world making money than liberals who place people and values above greed. The latter, favoring the well-being and the care of human beings over corporate profits, tend to migrate to the university as a place to teach, research, and yes, horror of horrors, advance such values.

Or to put it in Kendra’s terms, liberals want what’s on the plate to be shared. George Will conservatives want it all, every area of American life, control of every institution. Liberals had best lose their pipe dream of cooperation and bipartisanship with the newly reelected Bush Administration. They’re already starting to growl.

Michael J. Lombardi
Vancouver, WA