College Democrats Apoplectic About “The Warrior”

The November 2005 issue of The Warrior, an independent student newspaper produced by Republican and conservative students is a signal achievement.

Without the official University sponsorship and subsidy that the Tribune has, they have produced a well-written and attractive twelve-page paper that shows more journalistic and graphic-arts talent than the Tribune has ever shown.

Particularly noteworthy is “Portrait of a Warrior,” the story of a Marquette student who fought as a Marine in Iraq. One can’t imagine the Tribune doing anything like this, partly because they would be ideologically averse, and partly because their format would not allow a story this long.

All papers must have a web site these days, and The Warrior has a particularly attractive one, largely the work of Brandon Henak, web wonk and one of the GOP3.

Of course, not everybody likes Republicans nor newspapers that have a conservative editorial position, but one would expect liberals and Democrats on campus to give a token nod of appreciation toward the achievement this paper represents.

But it hasn’t worked that way.

Ryan Alexander, prominent College Democrat and proprietor of the 1832 blog went absolutely ballistic when he saw the paper. A few of his “over the top” comments include the following:

The actions of the Marquette College Republicans in the last year are acts of desperation. They are desperate because the fact is that College Republicans is now a fringe student group at Marquette. . .

[...]

The Warrior is clearly nothing more than a right-wing propaganda piece as almost every news article contained in it not only completely lacks objectivity but at multiple points the articles inject purely republican talking points and liberal bashing right into the article (visit www.thewarrior.org and read the articles for yourself). However, at no point in either the print or the online version of The Warrior does it state that it is a conservative paper.

Of course, nowhere do the Tribune or the New York Times state that they are liberal papers. I suppose that conservative papers have a duty to warn people off.

Alexander then claims that the paper must be funded by sinister off-campus Republican money (which would be better than money coerced from the pockets of students, in our opinion), and concludes:

So The Warrior is really nothing more than an act of desperation, as Marquette will probably never return to the conservative all white male Republican-utopia that it once was. It is a publication that furthers their collective denial that anyone at Marquette even gives a damn what they think or what they want to whine about today or tomorrow or any other point in the future.

While these were his public comments, his private comments in an e-mail to College Democrats members are equally revealing:

Hello All:

I’m sure all of your have seen or heard about the College Republican publication that went out around campus yesterday and I just wanted to email all of you and give you ideas for proper ways to respond.

First things first, it goes without saying that College Democrats does not endorse its members getting into altercations with College Republicans and this includes removing stacks of the publication from the off-campus locations where they have placed them. However, you may throw away or recycle copies that people have discarded or littered around campus.

We’ll take Alexander at his word here, and assume this is not a backhanded way of actually suggesting that copies of the paper be stolen.

But we wonder, what is this “altercations” business? Are we to assume that College Democrats will be so indignant that a conservative paper is being distributed on campus that they will want to fight?

That being said, the best way you can counter The Warrior is to write and write often, either for www.mudemocrats.com, which will be up next week or for the viewpoints section of the Marquette Tribune. If you really want to do a lot of writing and help combat the Republican rhetoric on the internet, I highly encourage you to approach me about writing for Marquette’s only Democrat-leaning blog, 1832 (http://1832.blogspot.com) or that you start your own blog.

In other words, emulate the College Republicans and publicly proclaim your views. Dandy idea.

Other even more easier [sic] things you can do to help:

1) Talk to all of your friends and talk about how The Warrior isn’t real news. The CRs are trying to pass it off as an “independent” or “alternative paper”, despite the fact their whole staff comes from the ranks of College Republicans and their start up funding comes from Republican money.

Apparently, friends of Democrats aren’t capable of deciding for themselves what is “real news,” or whether the paper reflects a Republican viewpoint, and are supposed to be really offended if Republicans provide money to have a conservative voice heard on campus. Apparently, they are sheep who need to have the proper outlook recited to them by Ryan Alexander.

2) Don’t read it and tell your friends not to read it. If they don’t get decent circulation they won’t be able attract enough advertisements, which means they won’t make enough money (and we all know how much they love money). So don’t pick up any copies and don’t read it online. The less people [sic] that read it the sooner it will disappear from campus.

If any of you have any questions, need help starting a blog or want to write for 1832, please feel free to contact me.

Sincerely-

Ryan Alexander

Why Alexander is so scared of the idea that The Warrior might remain on campus and continue to provide an alternative voice is an interesting question.

We’ve known quite a few liberals who, in their heart of hearts, were intolerant and wanted to shut up people with whom they disagreed. But most of them were too intelligent to admit it outright.

But not Ryan Alexander, apparently.

---

Update:

Brandon Henak of the GOP3 Blog has made it clear that The Warrior is financially supported by its own ad revenue, without any supposedly sinister funding from outside Republicans. We see nothing wrong with Republicans funding campus speech (since we believe the more speech the better), but it speaks very well for the student paper that it is paying its own way.