Jul 8th, 2009 at 3:57 pm
The Red Raiders Lose a Fan
For several years after moving to DC I lived with a roommate who’s a passionate fan of Texas Football so in part to annoy him and in part because I loved this Michael Lewis article I decided to become a Texas Tech fan. And there’s no question in my mind that they’re a fun team to play as on the XBox college football game that we used to play. But now it seems that Alberto Gonzales is getting a job:
Kent Hance, chancellor of the Texas Tech University System, said Gonzales agreed to a one-year visiting professorship. He will teach a class on contemporary issues in the executive branch in the school’s political science department.
“We’re excited,” Hance said. “Any time you can get a former Cabinet member … it is great.”
No more guns up for me.
43 Responses to “The Red Raiders Lose a Fan”
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July 8th, 2009 at 4:05 pm
Link fail.
Correct article maybe here?
July 8th, 2009 at 4:11 pm
One-year visiting professorship at third-level state school? That’s embarrassing.
Plus, he has to spent time in Lubbock, where they are still suffering the effects of the dust bowl.
It’s interesting that he won’t be teaching law, which is supposed to be what he was upholding while AG. The law school would probably lose certification if they let him lecture.
July 8th, 2009 at 4:14 pm
Do you even read these things before posting? Jesus, didn’t you go to Harvard?
July 8th, 2009 at 4:15 pm
What is Matt talking about? This is the inspiring story of an unemployed Hispanic in Texas who managed to quit a criminal life and get a decent job.
See also Rice and Yoo. They even got tenure! Our children are learning that no matter
July 8th, 2009 at 4:16 pm
…what you did in a past life, you can always re-invent yourself a life as a respectable professor.
July 8th, 2009 at 4:16 pm
AND you totally went beyond just being a fan of tech to being a straight up texas longhorns HATER. Can’t Austin get a little love?
July 8th, 2009 at 4:16 pm
That’s where Bobby Knight when he got fired from IU. What is it with this school hiring people cast off from everyone else?
July 8th, 2009 at 4:19 pm
I’m with Tim. It’s not exactly Rice or the University of Texas. It’s not even SMU or Baylor. And Lubbock is, ummm, less than pleasant. The smell is somewhat unique, however. A fine mixture of oil fields and cattle yards. Enjoy your stay, Alberto.
July 8th, 2009 at 4:23 pm
There’s another wrinkle that you didn’t notice–Kent Hance is the only man ever to beat George W. Bush in an election, back when Dubya was running for Congress in 1978. Look it up.
That makes it even funnier–the one guy who managed to beat Dubya back in the day is now picking up his trash.
July 8th, 2009 at 4:25 pm
Wow, seriously no idea what this post is about.
July 8th, 2009 at 4:27 pm
TPM:
See? It’s all about inspiring the kids: even a “first generation” can go on to become AG and get humiliated in Senate hearings because of a criminal administration.
July 8th, 2009 at 4:31 pm
Wow, how far has he sunk when even the Aggies won’t take him?
July 8th, 2009 at 4:36 pm
Kent Hance is the only man ever to beat George W. Bush in an election
Well, the only one to beat him and make it stick.
July 8th, 2009 at 4:38 pm
Since you’ve dumped Texas Tech, you’ll need a new college football team to adopt. Might I suggest the Cal Golden Bears? They are an academically oriented state school that has turned a corner under coach Jeff Tedford. The year before Tedford took over the team went 1-11 and was hit with NCAA probation. Tedford’s first year saw a 7-5 record. He’s never had a losing season despite being in Berkley, a campus that has been fighting with hippies to cut down some trees and build a new athletic center for several years.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jeff_Tedford
Food for thought
July 8th, 2009 at 4:44 pm
“Wow, how far has he sunk when even the Aggies won’t take him?”
Having lived in Austin, it pains me to say this. But Texas A&M is actually a pretty decent school. Certainly in the top 100, and the third best school in Texas. Way above Alberto’s level.
July 8th, 2009 at 4:52 pm
I’d bet one or more benefactors came forward and said they would give some sizable money to T Tech if they hired Gonzo.
Maybe they could move the SERE school there or open an interrogation study school as part of the psych department. Since torture is now an accepted part of American culture and policy shouldn’t it be given full academic recognition. Some say that others torture better than Americans but with our can do attitude if we roll up our sleeves I think America could be #1 in torture.
July 8th, 2009 at 5:04 pm
I think this post could have been a little cleaner. It is, as posted, worthy of Alberto Gonzales and his supporters.
July 8th, 2009 at 5:05 pm
Certainly in the top 100, and the third best school in Texas.
Rice, Texas, Trinity, and Southwestern are all significantly better. SMU probably is, except in engineering. Maybe even TCU and Baylor.
A&M is a good engineering and ag school, and a run-of-the-mill big state school in everything else.
July 8th, 2009 at 5:06 pm
Wow, seriously no idea what this post is about.
It probably doesn’t help that there are about six words missing from that first sentence.
July 8th, 2009 at 5:09 pm
Benny Lava,
Go Bears!
Although the “academically-oriented” part doesn’t really intersect with the sports part—Berkeley’s athlete graduation rates aren’t better than other schools’, and are much worse than *shudder* Stanford’s.
July 8th, 2009 at 5:10 pm
No more guns up for me.
=======================================================
I’m sure they’ll we laying awake at night worrying about it
July 8th, 2009 at 5:35 pm
tomemos,
I guess what I mean by academically oriented is that Cal Berkley has a reputation for being a world class university. Louisiana State University or University of Alabama don’t quite have the same reputation for academics, but check out those pre-season rankings.
http://cfn.scout.com/2/834781.html
July 8th, 2009 at 6:16 pm
“A&M is a good engineering and ag school, and a run-of-the-mill big state school in everything else.”
Well, I’m an engineer, and I never thought a liberal arts education really amounted to much. So I guess my bias is showing by ranking A&M so high. I’ve met some damn good engineers from A&M. But I’ve met more from the University of Texas.
July 8th, 2009 at 6:22 pm
Cal sucks.
July 8th, 2009 at 6:42 pm
It should make life easier for the plagiarists.
G: “Did you cut-and-paste this essay from Wikipedia?”
S: “I don’t recall.”
G: “I spoke to you at the beginning of class about plagiarism. Weren’t you paying attention?”
S: “Yes, I was paying attention.”
G: “So you know what I said about plagiarism!”
S: “I am sorry, I don’t remember.”
July 8th, 2009 at 7:04 pm
Might I suggest the Cal Golden Bears?
Because nothing says “Free of former Bush Administration war criminals” like the Golden Bears.
July 8th, 2009 at 7:29 pm
We’ll be looking for Matt at the next Texas Exes meeting in DC.
July 8th, 2009 at 8:00 pm
As I seem to be the only Tech graduate (2nd generation) to read this blog — and yes, we can read — or at least the only Tech grad to be engaged enough in its content to post in the comments here, I wish I could rise to the defense of my school, especially when I see it sneered at by people with gold-plated diplomas from name-brand schools. However, as I often have in the years since graduation, I am unable to summon the will because Tech excels at inviting the very scorn I ought to resent, but don’t.
I feel ashamed for my school with echoes of the feelings I had when they hired Bobby Knight. When Indiana finally got rid of Knight, I rejoiced, thinking that no school or pro team would ever touch that radioactive S.O.B… and I was wrong. Kinda the same range of emotions happening here. I knew Tech was a mediocre school hungry for notoriety at the time I attended and have been constantly reminded of it ever since.
As my dad always told people – “I didn’t get a college education. I went to Texas Tech” Now the law students can tell the same joke. And, yes, Lubbock, Texas (or Buttock, Texas as we called it) is pretty much a pit and the old Mac Davis song is true — “Happiness is Lubbock, Texas in my rearview mirror.”
And for the record, A&M may be a decent engineering and ag school, but the ROTC corps there has scrubbed College Station clean of anything resembling a boisterous, vibrant college town and twisted it instead into a sterile right-wing hellhole, the beating, seething core of deep-red Republican Texas where George W. Bush’s daddy felt comfortable building his presidential library.
Austin, though, is OK. Texas’ true-blue liberal heart, home of cowboy-boot wearin’ lefties like Jim Hightower and the late, great Molly Ivins.
July 8th, 2009 at 8:38 pm
Armadillo, if it makes you feel any better, I’m ex-Tech faculty. And feeling particularly good about that “ex-” right now. “Lubbock or Leave It” was not a tough choice (my colleagues were great though, and in fact one of them led the opposition to hiring Knight).
July 8th, 2009 at 8:49 pm
Wow. Seriously? This is the standard for collegiate fandom? No offensive people on staff, even as one-year visiting faculty? You might want to reconsider, as I am pretty certain most big school have at least one goon-level wacko on staff.
I mean, here’s a little snippet of Harvard’s tribute to the late Robert McNamara:
“Robert McNamara, the long-serving secretary of defense under Presidents Kennedy and Johnson and an important architect of the United States’ involvement in Vietnam, died Monday. He was 93 and had been in poor health for some time. McNamara was a frequent visitor to the Harvard Kennedy School, speaking at Forums and other events on his experiences ranging from the Cuban Missile Crisis to the lessons of the Vietnam War. McNamara also endowed a lecture series, The Robert McNamara Lecture on War and Peace. Former Sen. Sam Nunn, with McNamara in attendance, delivered the inaugural lecture in October 2008.”
Weird.
July 8th, 2009 at 9:22 pm
Sam M -
Seriously? Yes, seriously.
Gonzo is no Bob McNamara who, whatever his personal & professional failings, was an intelligent and introspective man with something to contribute to the national discourse, even if it was the self-serving laments of a man too weak to have acted on his conscience when he had the opportunity. He remained a tortured soul the rest of his days for what did, and what he failed to do, about Vietnam. That he was so central a figure in so central a narrative to our recent history — and was so acutely aware of his impact for good and for ill — makes him worthy of some guest-faculty position at a school the caliber of Harvard, where the open exchange of ideas is paramount.
Gonzo, on the other hand, is too dim-witted, too convinced of his own self-righteousness and wholly, willfully ignorant of the impact of his particular personal failings on recent history to be worthy of any place where the free and open exchange of ideas is supposed to take place. He has nothing to contribute but RNC-approved defenses of the indefensible.
I can’t speak to Matt’s chosen fandom of my alma mater — it is similar to the fandom of a Hoosier I work with who started following Tech basketball when Knight became coach — but as a graduate of a place of purported higher learning that also happens to have large, well-financed competitive sports teams with the attendant colors and pageantry, I am culturally obliged to take pride in my school and cannot, as a school, because it has in this hiring decision proved itself unworthy of such.
Now what do I do? The colors and pageantry are symbols of the school and it fails as a school, so — to paraphrase the old Jerry Seinfeld joke — I’m left to root for laundry.
July 8th, 2009 at 9:44 pm
At least Tech didn’t take the W. Presidential library; that piece of crap will end up at SMU.
July 8th, 2009 at 9:46 pm
Matt W -
Having been there, you know that Lubbock is pretty much like any place where large groups of young people gather. It has some cool places and little pockets of hip, interesting activities and social groups.
Such people and things are there to be found by anyone determined to ferret them out, but — because of the isolated location, the terrible weather, the atmospherics (OK, smell) of cattle and beef being the dominant industry, the cultural proclivities of that region of Texas and the SouthWest generally — the overall effect of the place is just stultifyingly conservative, mediocre and not conducive to an aire of free and open inquiry.
I had some great professors, truly, but since most students at Tech are there to party into a 0.01 GPA, snare a spouse or just get a freakin’ diploma at any cost, they aren’t really there to get a university education.
Academically, it’s little more than a sprawling commuter school with Greek life.
July 8th, 2009 at 9:51 pm
Joe,
Your standard is:
“That he was so central a figure in so central a narrative to our recent history”
And you say that does not apply to Gonzalez? Gadzooks.
I am no fan of Gonzalez myself. But if he were teaching a poli-sci class where my kid was going to college, my recommendation would be, “Take the class.”
You would recommend otherwise? For fear that your poor child would emerge, ready to write torture memos or some such?
You say Gionzalez is dimwitted. As much as I disagree with him, I doubt that’s true. Or, that he is any more dimwitted than anyone else on the faculty. Similarly, I would recommend that my kid take Ward Churchill’s class. McNamara’s class. And anything similar.
The idea that you have some litmus test for what’s allowed to be said and heard in the classroom seems odd. Odder still that this assessment would impact your view of the football team.
It all reminds me of National Review’s list of “conservative colleges” to go to. Hillsdale is always at the top of the list. Places like that. And I am sure that they are good places to do certain things. But go to DC some time. Take a wlak through the conservative think tanks. A bizarre proportion went to Yale, which is an extremely liberal place. But which also has a very active “Party of the Right.”
Look. You don’t like Gonzalez. That’s fine. But I doubt anyone will suffer from hearing his views. In particular, I dount his views on Guantanamo will impact the team’s spread formation. Anymore than having a Mao or Che or Stalin apologist on the faculty (lots of those to go around) will impact the kickers aim in either direction.
July 8th, 2009 at 10:00 pm
Joe,
I might add the final paragraph of that tribute to mcNamara:
“McNamara was also the Institute of Politics’ first honorary associate when the IOP first opened its doors in 1966, a stay that was marked by a widely publicized run in with opponents of the Vietnam War.”
Yeah. That’s right. In 1966. When the controversy about Vietnam was in full swing.
Rather than stamping their feet and running away, or burning their season tickets, opponents of the war ENGAGED McNamara in an academic context.
Which seems like the kind of thing people opposed to Gonzalez might consider doing.
Look, you might find his views repellent. But he’s hardly outside the mainstream. So… disagree with him. I thought that’s what universities were for. You know, the exchange of ideas. Hard to have one of those when you write one side out of the conversation.
July 8th, 2009 at 10:41 pm
Sam M -
Regarding including Gonzo in the wider academic “conversation”, fair enough. Who am I to say Gonzo isn’t the Bob McNamara of his day? He is certainly central to recent history. I also don’t think repellent and ahistorical opinions are reason alone to exclude people from academic life. Universities are supposed to be free and open exchanges and that should include all views, even ones beyond the pale — Nazis and Holocaust-deniers included — so that they may be aired and repudiated.
No, being wrong isn’t reason alone to reject him. I have no such litmus test for the particular views of any specific person, so please don’t ascribe one to me.
I don’t have a knee-jerk opposition to Gonzo at Texas Tech because he’s only ever been Bush’s lackey (although that could be sufficient reason), it’s that hiring him only because he has USAG on his resume bestows upon his RNC-approved version of recent events a legitimacy he nor they actually merit. It also ignores the mediocrity of the man himself. Bob McNamara was always credited with being the architect of our Vietnam policy, whether right or wrong or noble or evil, he was a man of such substance that he could create such a vast, complicated thing. All Gonzo ever did was find a way to legally do whatever hare-brained criminal enterprise BushCo wanted to do in the first place and then put people like Monica Goodling in charge of executing it.
Look, Gonzo had to land somewhere. I just wish it hadn’t been my school. I find it embarrassing, which is why I resent him for his new job. So maybe you’re right and I am just reverse-engineering a reason.
As for the impact that has on my Red Raider pride, well, consider their hiring Gonzo just the latest vexation and the culmination of years, nay, a lifetime (remember my dad went there, too) of slights and missteps and public humiliations emanating from the braintrust that runs that college. As I said, if I am supposed to have pride in my school and if a team is supposed to represent the school, what am I proud of? Not the school, certainly — especially now — but why that team at all? For the pretty colors? Isn’t that irrational? The players, then? College loyalty isn’t like that for a pro team. Why not just pick any old team instead?
Not driving toward any coherent point, just clearing my head of Gonzo antipathy and blaming a lingering resentment of my mediocre college education.
July 8th, 2009 at 11:53 pm
Gonzo had to land somewhere
Not really. Nobody had to give him a job. He certainly didn’t have to land a job outside a conservative hacktank.
As for Sam M’s assertion that Gonzales is “hardly outside the mainstream,” it’s not so clear. How many former Attorneys General cannot find a job for almost two years after leaving office, and cannot find work as lawyers at all? That would seem to indicate that he’s considered pretty far outside the mainstream of the legal profession.
Anyway, his job isn’t exclusively as a Visiting Professor; he’s also working to recruit Hispanic and black students. That makes him an ambassador for the university, more so than any ordinary professor. It doesn’t seem as though a university ought to want to be represented by such an ethics-free mediocrity.
July 9th, 2009 at 1:05 am
Matt W -
When I said Gonzo had to land somewhere, I meant it almost literally. A feckless man-without-a-country, roaming the earth in search of safe harbor, hounded from town to town, while a satisfying image, is unrealistic. Eventually, a price point between his supposed “skills-set” and someone with a job opening to fill would be found, I just thought it would be at a Wal-Mart. But then I thought the same thing about Bobby Knight.
Texas Tech University was happy to prove me wrong on both counts.
Now, I did not for a minute mean that he had to land at an actual well-paying job with any prestige at all anywhere in the real world. I meant he had to wind up doing something somewhere to somehow pay the bills, whether as a hack at a neocon think-tank or a hired-hand shoveling horse shit (but I repeat myself). Or selling pencils from a tin can on a street corner, the job he’s most qualified for, and even then barely.
But, as to your point about him not working as a lawyer, he won’t be teaching law at Tech. He is to teach political science. And, you’re right, it is shameful that he will be presented as an ambassador of the university. I don’t think even Sam M would make that claim about McNamara’s relationship with the ivory tower.
Which means I will remain embarrassed by my school and it makes me not even want to root for teams — however good they may or may not be — which represent such a foolish and middling university.
July 9th, 2009 at 1:42 am
Go with Nebraska. Nowhere is more serious about its football than Nebraska. The fans are civil, too.
July 9th, 2009 at 9:59 am
As a Tech alum… I can’t say that I’m surprised. It’s Bobby Knight all over again, only here we’re talking war criminal rather than just sports criminal. That said, I got a good education there and went on to a PhD at a top tier university. So it ain’t all bad.
July 9th, 2009 at 12:20 pm
But, as to your point about him not working as a lawyer, he won’t be teaching law at Tech. He is to teach political science.
Sorry, I wasn’t clear about that — that was what I meant by saying that he couldn’t find work as a lawyer at all, that even this job isn’t in law. (I think the did have a temp job assisting a special master that probably required a law degree.) Anyway, totally agreed with you.
My awesome colleague who I mentioned before has written me to ask that I point out that the oil wells start 100 miles south of Lubbock, that it only stinks once a year when the wind is blowing right (I’d say more like two or three times), and that in a month or two it will be legal to buy booze within city limits.
July 9th, 2009 at 2:27 pm
Matt W –
I’d agree that you your colleague mischaracterized the nature and timing of the Lubbock stink. Unless the wind is blowing due east or west, everyone enjoys at least a whiff of either the feedlots or the slaughterhouses if not a full-on stench for due north & south winds. To say nothing of the taste of the water in town. But that is good news about the lifting of the booze ban in, you know, a college town. Sometimes drinking is all there is to do in Lubbock.
srb -
Tech ain’t all bad, you’re right. I have some very fond memories of the time I spent there and, being considered reasonably successful in my chosen career, my education wasn’t utterly worthless. Still, more worthy college experiences can be had elsewhere and Gonzo now on faculty reinforces that feeling.
July 15th, 2009 at 3:01 am
Mr. Gonzales will lecture at Tech on his area of expertise, Fluid Mechanics of Waterboarding.
See:
http://notionscapital.wordpress.com/2009/07/13/professor-gonzales/