Where's Lowry and his peculiar "concepts"? And where's ISU?

Pleased to see my letter on ISU’s cancellation of the Rich Lowry appearance in the Trib Star today. Not pleased (as far as I have read or heard) that the ISU administration has failed to offer a full explanation for this action. I guess they are counting on the public to just let it pass, to forget it. After all, it’s not like the school cancelled an important baseball game.

Anyone paying the slightest bit of attention would agree that Rich Lowry clumsily champions a man who is a serious danger to our republic, presidential candidate Donald Trump. But cancelling Lowry’s Indiana State University appearance is not the answer to the problem we face as voters and as a nation.

Given our two-party system, given our responsibilities as voters, and given the significance we pay to the idea of hearing all sides on political issues, ISU’s action has put itself in a no-win position.

The shallow and power-corrupted Republican Party has nominated Trump. The shallow and corrupt National Review editor Rich Lowry is the megaphone for this failure of a man. Trump has never been a public servant to the people. He has, in and out of office, served only himself.

If ISU is to be a force supporting and advocating the search for truth, upholding the value and weight of hard evidence over emotional and abusive demagoguery, what option do they have other than allowing free and open discussion that is subject to fact-based refutation?

ISU has seriously failed in how they handled the Lowry affair. They owe us all a full explanation for their misguided action. And unless this explanation contains a totally compelling justification for the cancellation, ISU has the responsibility to get Lowry back here.

It is up to the Vigo community, to ISU students and faculty, all of us, to study up, confront, and turn a Lowry presentation into an effective challenge to the Trump lies he parrots and the racist innuendo he spouts. We all need to stand up, point out, and underline the significant truths about Trump’s sorry record as a human being, as a deeply-flawed political leader, and as a convicted felon. Lowry will not do this important work. We must.

— Gary Daily

 

September 14, 2024

Material below is from the transcript of the presidential debate. What else do you need to know?

Former President Donald Trump: 

"Our country is being lost. We're a failing nation. And it happened three and a half years ago. And what, what's going on here, you're going to end up in World War III, just to go into another subject. What they have done to our country by allowing these millions and millions of people to come into our country. And look at what's happening to the towns all over the United States. And a lot of towns don't want to talk — not going to be Aurora or Springfield. A lot of towns don't want to talk about it because they're so embarrassed by it. In Springfield, they're eating the dogs. The people that came in. They're eating the cats. They're eating — they're eating the pets of the people that live there. And this is what's happening in our country. And it's a shame.”

Vice President Kamala Harris: 

"Talk about extreme. Um, you know, this is I think one of the reasons why in this election I actually have the endorsement of 200 Republicans who have formally worked with President Bush, Mitt Romney, and John McCain including the endorsement of former Vice President Dick Cheney and Congress member Liz Cheney. And if you want to really know the inside track on who the former president is, if he didn't make it clear already, just ask people who have worked with him. His former chief of staff, a four-star general, has said he has contempt for the constitution of the United States. His former national security adviser has said he is dangerous and unfit. His former secretary of defense has said the nation, the republic would never survive another Trump term. And when we listen to this kind of rhetoric, when the issues that affect the American people are not being addressed, I think the choice is clear in this election.”

— Gary Daily,

Terre Haute