SUBMITTED BY: Rick Heisler
As a proud, excited and active UCLA alum, I am concerned and mystified by the baffling choice of having Fox News guru Frank Luntz speak at the upcoming UCLA Alumni Day, “Obama at Midterm.”
Look, I get it ““ college campuses should be open to all political viewpoints as an incubator for thought and action for young minds. I myself would never have become who I am today without the alternative, challenging viewpoints that I was exposed to during UCLA in the Reagan-era 1980s (I’m looking at you, Professor Wolfenstein!). And now as someone who considers himself a thoughtful liberal (to me, it’s not a dirty word), I still want people who share Mr. Luntz’ mostly unpopular (look at the polls), ultra-conservative bent to be able to share their views on our prestigious campus, but in the proper environment and context, which Alumni Day is most definitely not. Moreover, Mr. Luntz is neither a UCLA alumnus, nor a UCLA teacher!
And to call Mr. Luntz simply a Fox News political guru does that already-skewed concept severe injustice. In the first place, in any common sense world, Fox News could never be considered a high water mark for “fair and balanced,” non-partisan, objective journalistic instincts. Call it what it is: a place for the 3 million or so “angry conservatives,” “birthers” and Obama-as-socialist haters to get their oftentimes inaccurate, outright false and inflammatory “news.” By the network’s own estimate, Fox News has about three hours of “news” on its network each day, if that. The rest is right wing editorial content featuring such hate-filled political bomb-throwers as Glenn Beck.
But if Mr. Luntz’ connection to Fox News is in itself not enough of a detraction for UCLA to bring him on campus as an Alumni Day speaker (of all things), then Mr. Luntz’ mostly one-sided controversial positions should be. May I remind the UCLA Alumni Association that Mr. Luntz is not only a hard-right political commentator himself, but as the party’s virtual oracle, he also drives the very Republican intelligentsia and party/lobbying apparatus by his very words, deeds and actions. In the past year alone, Mr. Luntz has written memos laying out arguments for the destruction of both the health care and financial regulatory reform measures that have been used and quoted almost verbatim by the Republican party operatives who spread their violently anti-Obama philosophies. In addition, it was Mr. Luntz who also convinced the Bush Administration to re-frame the term “global warming” as “climate change” because it sounded less urgent and would, thus, falsely dupe an American public into waiting to take action on our dire global environmental situation.
I wish to reiterate that, as an attorney, I am all for open debate in the marketplace of ideas, and may the best arguments win. But to have Mr. Luntz speak at what should be a completely non-partisan day to celebrate our happy pride in all things UCLA, including its academics, sports and its learned world-class scholarship, is misguided at best and taints the day at worst. At the very least, perhaps Mr. Luntz could be challenged in a debate or in rebuttal by another “political guru” with an alternative political viewpoint (and not from Fox News), like, say, Steve Clemons?
I question the misconceived reasoning behind this speaker choice on this day and also question who made it and for what purpose. If I was already on the fence about attending this Alumni Day in the first place, mostly because I live out of the nearby region, I am really convinced to not attend now that Mr. Luntz is being included on the itinerary to spew his nonconstructive, divisive rhetoric.
Heisler is a UCLA alumnus from the class of 1987.