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| A Tale of Two Committees |
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| 9-11 edges to the finish, and the Regents' delivers |
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This is Dark Cloud on Wednesday, May 19, 2004. The Federal committee investigating 9-11 has had a rollicking few days, and here in Boulder the CU Regents’ Committee investigating the culture at the University - based upon the recent scandals involving the football team - turned in their truncated report. The 9-11 Commission, which came about only on the insistence of victims’ families, was destined to be killed in its caul by Bush, who absolutely did not want an independent voice grading his administration’s efforts, primarily because we now know it was focused upon Iraq rather than al Quada from the git-go, and Bush had lied about it. But the families prevailed, and Richard Clarke blew the gate down, and combined with incompetent and unaware actions of the elements running the Iraq War, the public is tuned in. Yesterday was ugly. The New York police and fire department chiefs were under the gun from both Republicans and Democrats. It was tender going, not least because – partly through their own efforts – the police and fire departments had framed themselves as heroes and above reproach. But the sad facts are the incompetence, vanity, and feudal public safety organizations in New York probably combined to add to the toll far as much as decrease it. Among other things, they set up command centers in the WTC, they didn’t communicate with each other, and they sent people up 90 floors without a clear idea of what they could or should do. But the real problem was the clan mentality of the firemen and police themselves. This was best illustrated by the fistfights they had over bodies of their own in the WTC pile. ‘Our dead are more important than your dead,’ and both more important than a mere office worker. Pretty revolting, but fully in keeping with the history of both departments which are, after all, the direct progeny of ethnic street gangs and political favoritism as surely as the Mafia. They often put their unit pride above not only public safety but their own. Odds are not good that the police and fire departments can play fair or at all with each other unless their, well, culture is changed. Here in Boulder we dealt with another institution’s culture: that of CU’s Athletic Department. The issue has been said to be an investigation of the Athletic Department’s culture in regard to sex and chemical stimulants used for football recruiting, but it more accurately can be said to have been an expose of the ludicrous amount of power the football program has over the University, and suggest what the real costs are. Like Bush, the Regents - absent Cindy Carlisle, who recused herself because her husband represents one of the women who sued to start this thing, and Jim Martin, who has shaken off some issues to be a clear voiced spokesman for what needs to be done – absent those two, the Regents are pretty much lapdogs of the President and establishment Olde Boy values, which is to say: “Go Buffs!!” The President, in turn, has clearly been under the thumb of Athletic Director Tharp and Coach Barnett, who earns more than she does, in possible exchange for which Tharp gave the President a jet airplane for her money-raising travels. Since this outrage was brought to public attention, by lawsuit and not as the result of local media investigation, President Hoffman has almost seemed independent at times. Mostly, though, she and her Waylon Smithers, Chancellor Bynny – who resembles a cross between Grima Wormtongue and Arnold Stang - have been correctly seen as weak and unable to discipline Tharp, who really is the black hole in this story. Before the report was made, Hoffman had publicly stated the parameters of the changes she would institute, which was revealing. It didn’t seem to include firing anyone. But new horrors await. Last winter, an athletic department assistant had heroically fallen on his, well, sword on behalf of, well, who knows, and confessed that thousands of dollars to a single escort service had been for him alone during a forty day period. Nobody laughed. But others have come forward and said this man lied, and that he paid for the entertainment of very young men with both that and other adult entertainment services. If he goes up on charges – say, if he lied to police or under oath - that will get interesting, because he didn’t get paid enough to underwrite such things himself. If it turns out, and it probably will, that lots of CU money has indirectly gotten channeled to adult entertainment for young men through the years, some under 18, Tharp’s rather criminal and documented insistence on ‘plausible deniability’ for his department looks even less warm and fuzzy than it does now. After all, why is plausible deniability required? |
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