The Nazz
04-11-2005, 18:16
'Cuz damn, are they doing a shitty job.
First it was the entirely avoidable Cindy Sheehan fiasco, and now it's this mess (http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2005/10/29/AR2005102901574.html).
It was Soul Food Thursday at Howard University last week, and many students were looking forward to their favorite meal: fried chicken, macaroni and cheese, collard greens and cornbread. At lunchtime, however, students discovered that much of the campus had been locked down and that the school's cafeteria was off limits.
Apparently, many of them did not know that President Bush and first lady Laura Bush had arrived for a "youth summit" at the Blackburn Center, where the dining hall is located. Stomachs began to growl, tempers flared, and, eventually, a student protest ensued....
But the visit went from bad to worse. On a day when the U.S. Senate passed a resolution paying tribute to civil rights icon Rosa Parks, who died last week, campus security guards were telling students that if they wanted to eat they'd have to come back when the president and first lady were gone, then go to a service door at the rear of the dining hall and ask for a chicken plate to go.
Now, the campus administration certaily shares the blame here---they didn't warn the students that Bush was coming (probably to head off any organized protests) and didn't have an adequate system in place to serve their students, but any competent PR firm would have made sure that those contingencies were handled, especially if they're dealing with a client, like Bush, whose approval ratings in this community were recently measured at 2% (within the margin of error for the poll).
This certainly doesn't seem like the same team who put together "Mission Accomplished" on the Abraham Lincoln.
First it was the entirely avoidable Cindy Sheehan fiasco, and now it's this mess (http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2005/10/29/AR2005102901574.html).
It was Soul Food Thursday at Howard University last week, and many students were looking forward to their favorite meal: fried chicken, macaroni and cheese, collard greens and cornbread. At lunchtime, however, students discovered that much of the campus had been locked down and that the school's cafeteria was off limits.
Apparently, many of them did not know that President Bush and first lady Laura Bush had arrived for a "youth summit" at the Blackburn Center, where the dining hall is located. Stomachs began to growl, tempers flared, and, eventually, a student protest ensued....
But the visit went from bad to worse. On a day when the U.S. Senate passed a resolution paying tribute to civil rights icon Rosa Parks, who died last week, campus security guards were telling students that if they wanted to eat they'd have to come back when the president and first lady were gone, then go to a service door at the rear of the dining hall and ask for a chicken plate to go.
Now, the campus administration certaily shares the blame here---they didn't warn the students that Bush was coming (probably to head off any organized protests) and didn't have an adequate system in place to serve their students, but any competent PR firm would have made sure that those contingencies were handled, especially if they're dealing with a client, like Bush, whose approval ratings in this community were recently measured at 2% (within the margin of error for the poll).
This certainly doesn't seem like the same team who put together "Mission Accomplished" on the Abraham Lincoln.