Was there a time when Stanford students were more conservative than they are now?
In its September/October issue,*Stanford Magazine*published a glowing profile of Stanford alum and President Obama’s longtime friend and confidante, now his Senior Advisor and Assistant to the President for Intergovernmental Affairs and Public Engagement, Valerie Jarrett ’78.
Yesterday evening, widely read conservative blogger Michelle Malkin wrote a post about it. As Malkin points out,
The piece appeared in the wake of the Jarrett-engineered Van Jones debacle and the Obama/Jarrett/Chicago crony Olympics flop. Like the massive New York Times profile published earlier this year, the Stanford Magazine piece was mum on Jarrett’s hardball days and failed developer record as a slum lord.
Even more interestingly, Malkin draws attention to Stanford alums, who, it turns out, are not all in lockstep with Stanford Magazine‘s view of Jarrett. In the November/December issue of Stanford Magazine, several alums wrote in to criticize Jarrett’s past and role in the Obama Administration. I count at least eight letters criticizing the Jarrett profile, more than on any other single topic from the previous issue, and all eight were critical.
Said former ASSU Vice President Erline Anderson Reber ’49:
Stanford has become an apologist for the left through political correctness and has arrived there by applying draconian methods that kept our magazine from . . . [doing] book reviews of constructive thinkers like Shelby Steele and Thomas Sowell, who are hiding out at that “wicked” Hoover Institution.
Mark Williams ’74, JD/MBA ’93:
Stanford again is blessed to have within its midst a true patriot and esteemed scholar and administrator, who also happens to be an African-American woman. Of course I refer to Condoleezza Rice. The Stanford community as a whole should be treating her better, not groveling at the feet of another Obama henchperson.
Pete Holzmann ’79:
What a great lesson: Valerie’s Stanford education did not provide her with a moral compass sufficient to recognize that Jones would be bad news in any administration. I’m left wondering if Jarrett, or Stanford, can recognize the immoral shamefulness of her actions?
See the rest of the letters on Stanford Magazine‘s letters page.