Verbum Ultimum: Debate Decorum
By The Dartmouth Editorial Board
Published on Friday, October 7, 2011
Next Tuesday, the College will renew an exciting quadrennial tradition when GOP presidential contenders take the stage in Spaulding Auditorium for the ninth Republican primary debate of the 2012 election season. Hosting a debate is a tremendous honor — one that only two other schools in the nation are currently scheduled to share. Students of all political persuasions should engage in the lively and spirited dialogue that the event will bring to our campus, but it is imperative that students and community members remember to set a civil and respectful tone for this discourse.
Embarrassing incidents of audience misbehavior have marred several of this year’s Republican primary debates, at least partially overshadowing the candidates’ discussions of important issues. At recent debates in Orlando and Tampa, and at the Reagan Presidential Library in California, audience members booed a gay soldier during a video question, shouted “Let him die!” in response to a hypothetical question about treating a terminally ill uninsured man, and enthusiastically applauded when the debate moderator brought up Texas’ extensive execution record under Gov. Rick Perry. In each of those cases, the behavior of the debate-goers became a bigger story than the candidates’ statements.
The College’s presidential debate will effectively function as our school’s “close up” — our moment of greatest national visibility in the forseeable future. Murmurs of student plans to disrupt the debate are therefore highly troubling. It would be an enormous black eye for the College and a damning indictment of our maturity and political culture if Dartmouth’s debate were to be characterized by another inappropriate outburst, no matter its ideological origin.
Instead of engaging in childish heckling during certain candidates’ replies, students should harness their informed opinions into other, more meaningful channels. In the days surrounding the debate, we will have the opportunity to participate in scholastic conversations that are actually conducive to making sense of the candidates’ policies and political records, such as the pre-debate “Leading Voices: What’s at Stake in the Republican Debate” panel moderated by political journalist and College Trustee Morton Kondracke ’60.
As students, we especially should recognize the value of ideas over antics, of rebuttals over ruckus. We owe it to the College to be gracious hosts and thoughtful participants in a vital part of our political process.
Let’s leave the stage and the spotlight to the candidates — after all, these politicians are vying to lead our country. They should be scrutinized with thorough intensity, but not let off the hook by the distracting behavior of their audience.
Well done, editors. Couldn’t get one of your columnists to write about those gay-booing, patient-killing, execution-loving Republicans, so you took it upon yourselves. Did you think you we’re being subtle?
By ‘11 on Oct 7 | 8:28 am
Dartmouth has no speech code. Therefore, do whatever you want, fellow students. Especially since the Daily Dartmouth told you not to.
By D13 on Oct 7 | 12:50 pm
The fact that this even has to be stated is an embarassing reflection on how immature much of campus can be. Living in NH and being able to observe primaries up close is a privilege that you have earned by getting into Dartmouth. I would hope that expectations for appropriate behavior would be higher than this article implies.
By ‘07 on Oct 7 | 4:33 pm
Great editorial. There are plenty of countries (including the one where I live, China) where citizens don’t get the right to vote in meaningful elections.
By Patrick Mattimore ‘72 on Oct 8 | 5:18 am
It is worse to knowingly and malevolently mischaracterize what happened in earlier debates than it is to pre-chastize an audience from the higher rungs of the Dartmouth Editorial Board Staff run amok with their own fantasies of superiority, but the Editorial Board pulls a rabbit out of its collective hat and accomplishes both. Where is the editorial telling the SEIU to behave prior to a union meeting or protest? The editorial imploring the student body not to swear prior to or during Carnival, Homecoming and Green Key? The “Gay Soldier” was NOT booed. The question that the “Gay Soldier” asked was booed. His question included the sentence, “Do you intend to circumvent the progress that has been made for gay and lesbian soldiers in the military?” There was no booing when the soldier identified himself as gay. The booing, which lasted about one second was done by one or two people out of an audience of 5,000 imeediately after the sentence quoted above. The question is asking if the candidates intend to “circumvent the progress” first assuming in the question that it is progress (which is neither here nor there, but it is a general assumption that is not agreed upon) and second asking if that progress will be “circumvented.” Two synonyms for circumvent are “oppress” and “defraud.” As to the “Let an uninsured terminally ill patient die!” President Obama himself said that it may be better “to give Gramma a pill” for pain than to spend money on an operation to prolong her life. Is the Editorial Board more upset at a Republican audience member for saying let the unisured die, or at President Obama for saying an insured or uninsured Granny should have her plug pulled? “Give her a pill.” How deeply sympathetic of our Dear, Dear President and the Dartmouth editorial Board. And finally the attack question on Governor Perry, whose job it is to uphold the laws of the State of Texas, for doing his job to faithfully execute the laws of his state. For Governor Perry to stop executions in Texas he would have to break the law of Texas that he is sworn to uphold. Governor Perry had nothing to do with the crimes committed by those executed, he had nothing to do with their convictions, he had nothing to do with their sentencing and he had nothing to do with writing the law or the penalty. The idea that Governor Perry and the people of Texas are blood thirsty murderers was the implication of the question and that is as nasty as it gets. The people executed are convicted murderers and whether they are blood thirsty or not is a question to ask them individually. Some of them will will say that they are. When people cheered the fact that Texas carries out its constitutional laws…that makes them the “bad guys” according to the Dartmouth Editorial Board. This gratuitous column written by the Editorial Board is chock full of unmerited superiority, it almost makes you forget that it isn’t just the board that is taking the untenable position of preaching prior restraint as a newspaper dedicated to freedom of speech, but that they have their facts and interpretations wrong as well. All of this is politically motivated and it is a disgrace.
By ‘06 on Oct 8 | 11:47 am
Rabble rabble liberal rag!
By we’re on Oct 9 | 6:50 pm
Well said, Patrick.
By D ‘09 Concurs on Oct 11 | 8:50 pm
Great comment by Patrick Mattimore. Totally agree with him.
By toran on Oct 12 | 12:09 pm
Thank you D editorial board for telling me not to be an idiot. As always your columns really provide tons of new and non-obvious information.
By Really? on Oct 12 | 5:06 pm