Editor’s Notes: Hooray for flip-flopping, pro and con on McDavis raise, dogs
By Terry Smith
July 17, 2008
“Editor’s Notes” is back this week, and since it’s still Brew Week, I’ll try to come up with a couple more beer stories. But first, some other matters…
IN THE ONGOING presidential race, the terms “flip-flopping” and “flip-flopper” have gotten quite a workout. Most recently, Democrat Barack Obama has drawn criticism from Republicans for changing or moderating his positions on a number of issues, and from liberal Democrats, who don’t like to see him shifting toward the middle.
Republican John McCain, meanwhile, took seismic steps to move into the conservative Republican camp during the primaries, including transforming from a fearless deficit hawk to a pandering, tax-cutting supply-sider. Now that he’s all but won the nomination, he’s shifting to the center on other issues, such as global warming.
In effect, both of these candidates, in adjusting their focus from the primaries to the general election, are trying to broaden their bases, by saying whatever resonates with the vast middle in American politics.
This is a perfectly legitimate thing to do for the candidate I support (Obama) but not for the candidate that I don’t (McCain). This is because I want my candidate to win.
The sad truth in America today is that a candidate who tells the truth — that solving our country’s substantial problems will require ample individual, group and corporate sacrifice — can’t get elected.
If they do tell the truth, while they might win some isolated and short-term respect, the main result will be creating an opening for the opposition to attack.
So, really, if Obama and McCain aren’t flip-flopping, then they’re probably setting themselves up to lose the election.
Just speaking for myself, I’d rather have my candidate be a winning flip-flopper than a losing truth-teller.
PEOPLE IN TOWN ARE still talking about the McDavis raise, though it’s no longer the first topic that comes up in any local conversation. Now they’re mainly talking about my astounding offensive numbers in Athens’ co-rec softball league. Ha, ha, just kidding.
But anyway, I had a couple more thoughts about the McDavis raise, one favorable to the president and the other not so much.
Let’s start with the positive.
Critics of the OU Board of Trustees’ decision to award McDavis a 29 percent raise should consider his salary in light of what pro athletes earn in today’s inflated professional sports market. Or corporate executives. Or movie stars.
The raise lifted McDavis’ salary from $294,665 to $380,000 (whereas he didn't receive a raise last year). Currently, the minimum salary for a Major League Baseball player is $390,000. The average salary is $3,154,845. (While McDavis gets substantial perks above and beyond his salary, including a house, automobile and job for his wife, Major League ballplayers also receive valuable add-ons to their salaries, including free housing and meals for much of the year.)
So the very worst player playing for the very worst team in the Major Leagues earns more than the president of a 19,000-enrollment public university.
Of course, defenders of professional athletes’ high salaries would argue that their careers are short, so they need to – cliché alert – make hay while the sun is shining. I would counter that while this is true, the work of a college president is infinitely more important, with far greater consequences, than that of even the greatest ballplayer. Not to mention, one of Dr. McDavis’ main functions these days is fundraising, which means that if he’s successful, his achievements will more than pay for his salary.
Now for the not so positive angle.
The main criticism of the McDavis raise involved its timing. At a time when the university is asking departments and personnel to make painful cuts, and to do more with less, the OU Trustees would have had to study long and hard before coming up with an action that would do more to undercut their own message to faculty, staff and students.
It’s a statement that either 1) the Trustees are pathologically detached from the realities on the ground at the university they oversee; or 2) they don’t give a rat’s ass what people think. Neither reflects well on the Trustees.
As for President McDavis, I wish he had considered rejecting the raise, or accepting a lower one, as a way to set a positive example for the rest of campus.
There is a recent precedent for this type of leadership in the state to our south. University of Louisville President James Ramsey recently asked the school’s Board of Trustees to forgo a $113,000 bonus he had coming in his contract, as a result of meeting performance benchmarks. Instead, he’ll receive the same $700 lump-sum payment that other full-time faculty and staff are receiving. With that added to his salary, Ramsey earned $455,431 this year, which granted, is much more than McDavis will make.
Ramsey reportedly asked to skip his expected bonus because of tight economic times at the University of Louisville, whose Trustees earlier had approved $6.1 million in budget cuts.
While OU officials say that economic conditions have actually improved at OU due to McDavis' leadership, it's difficult to see that improvement on the ground, whether you're a staff member "doing more with less," a faculty member operating under a tight departmental budget, a student with fewer class sections to choose from, or a parent facing higher expenses. In a university that seems so continuously concerned with keeping "on message," approval of a 29 percent raise for an unpopular president rings a profoundly dissonant note.
I’VE GOTTEN A LOT OF positive response to the story about how a letter to the editor in this paper helped trigger an international rescue of six abandoned, thirsty dogs off a Greek island (The NEWS, July 10).
It’s a great story, if I don’t say so myself, but for me at least, the main newsworthy aspect involves the way the rescue came together, rather than the fact of the dogs’ rescue itself.
After all, why should the fate of six mutts in Greece deserve more attention than the routine euthanization of thousands – maybe millions – of abandoned dogs in the United States every year? To get all teary-eyed about six rescued mongrels in Greece, while not worrying about all the thousands of dogs who face extinction in our own county every year, reflects some pretty warped priorities.
OK, I PROMISED SOME more beer stories in this column but I can’t think of any more. To tell the truth, I’m starting to prefer wine.
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