Dear Mr. President

Written by a Portland State University student, an open letter and invitation to Dubya...

The education of our president

Dear Mr. President,

I am graduating from college after a fair amount of sacrifice and struggle. I go to Portland State University, a fine institution that has done a lot for me, and I have attempted to do as much as possible for it. When I began, I felt so optimistic about the changes that I was seeing all around me. It was a time of great purpose and I felt a calling to serve my community in a way that I had never felt before. It was an exciting time. Don't get me wrong, Mr. President, I have not given up. It is just that everything has turned out so differently than the clear depths of promise that we all once enjoyed. This is the reason that I invite you to attend my university for a few days of classes. Portland State University, while not the most loyal compatriot to you, will offer you an education that you have, by all accounts, been lacking in your administration and in your decisions.

It disheartens me, though, that you dismiss my education, my planning and my purpose as elitism. This is especially confusing when you attended the most exclusive institutions in the world, while dismissing this fact as not worthwhile. I know of so many who struggle just to pay their electric bills, while dreaming of the chance to be educated in the way that you were. I am equally flummoxed by your political reasoning, which rejects differences of opinion and condemns a truly breathtaking feature of democracy: the press. For these reasons, as well, I look forward to you sitting beside me for a day as a PSU Viking (Vikings were fierce warriors, you know).

On Day One at PSU, we will attend the classes that I mentor in the general education program. Our goals, in these classes, are to negotiate ideas across rifts of opinion, to explore the reasons and social thinking that accompany categories of difference both locally and globally, and to communicate effectively using not only words, but all the media of technology, in presenting and arguing our evolving perspectives. The fundamental goal is to create a space of academic safety, not intellectual comfort, where we can challenge and inspire each other. On good days the room is filled with light, on others, like the day we discussed the torture at Abu Ghraib, we feel heavy and caked with the danger that you have foisted on our own fledgling democracy. You will be received with care, though, and knowing the intense consideration that my peers utilize with each other, you will be received with fairness. But you will be required to explain your actions; you will be required to clearly present your argument for all the things you do; you will be graded by your use of logic, not rhetorical flourish.

I am concerned that, due to your busy schedule, we may have just one day together at Portland State. In that case, let me prepare you for a few questions that you may be asked after your presentation. One of my gay students would like to marry; he will most definitely ask you why his love would bring down western civilization. Another student is very concerned about the deep influence of companies like Halliburton on your policy decisions. He is also very concerned about the manifest deception that Cheney has fostered concerning his connections to the companies that now run your war. One of the most politically conservative students is likely to ask why your administration has violated the basic tenet of conservatism by championing the Patriot Act. Another student, who exerts great effort in raising her child and attending school full-time, would like to know why her estranged parents received such a large tax break (when they clearly did not need it) while she is barely able to afford child and health care. She is also extremely worried about the rumors of implementing the draft. Another student, who is in the National Guard, awaits her war papers, while desperately trying to ignore the utter collapse of the organizational and command structure that you promised would be paramount in this effort.

Mr. President, I would like to know why your campaign spits the word "educated" and "liberal" in a shoddy attempt to create an enemy at home to cover your own actions abroad. I would also like to know, Mr. President, how you conceive of your actions as conservative when they more closely resemble Evangelical and Zionist zealotry. Mr. President, I invite you to my university because I would like you to see that we remain hopeful, not because of what you have done, but in spite of what you have done. We reminds ourselves, through the labors of liberally educating ourselves, that the shallow register of promise and potential that is definitive of your presidency will soon wash away.