Cosmo Meets Conservative
by Jeff DeMartino

Poor Republicans. They've been having a tough time of it lately. Reports out of D.C. show that Clinton is looking better now than before "l'affaire Lewinsky."

"By 52 percent to 35 percent," the February 15 Washington Post reports, "Americans say they trust Clinton more than congressional Republicans to deal with the country's biggest problems."

Maybe that's not what Congressional Republicans had in mind? While the same survey shows that nearly half the country thinks that Clinton should "face criminal charges at some point," the Republicans mucked this up so much that they, not Clinton, look like the criminal.

The kernels of the Republicans' dilemma begin not in Washington but on our college campuses, where knee-jerk young Republicans have pissed all over campus with the sort of unsympathetic literature that normal people might find a little irksome. Publications labeled "conservative" exist at colleges and universities all over the nation because right-wing students feel the need for an antidote to perceived liberal media and administration. They lead a backlash, taking on administrators and mainstream media organizations that defend affirmative action and political correctness.

But here at Georgetown, for instance, the conservative alternative has resorted to the kind of bratty kicking and screaming that would only serve to alienate those that might join its ranks. They just don't seem to get it. Would-be right-leaners wince when they read such publications as The Georgetown Academy, whose October 1998 issue makes fun of passed-out students at parties like this:

"If it's a woman, drop her off at the Women's Center after writing a sexist epithet on her chest; they'll see it as a career advancement opportunity."

Unfortunately, lines like this offer no advancement opportunity for conservative thought. Such is the problem with reactionary conservatives at Georgetown. You don't make friends by making fun of rape victims, unless you're looking for some pretty unctuous types under your one-sleeper tent.

In its previous issue, Academy editors applauded the individual who hit a university administrator with a beer can. The Academy also insinuated that two professors were in a "closet." The Academy followed it all up in its October issue by publishing, in an item on pro-gay faculty, that its editors "have long waited for a way to identify and publish the names and courses of all faculty and staff keen on politicizing the campus and the curriculum." Sounds like a threat to me.

The conservative alternative also spearheaded the 1997 printing of The Guide: A Little Beige Book for Today's Miss G, a publication devoted to conservative women's issues. This Guide offered some interesting alternatives to rape statistics spread by the GU Women's Center, but the end result sounded like the cries of a bratty child, pleading for validation from campus women. "It's not a crisis if it's just a diet," one sub-headline cried, as if anybody cared.

Even though this year's Guide is a lighter read, the Guide gals still let loose with a couple of paranoid anti-liberal lines to boggle the mind. In a number called "Take Back the Date," writer Jessica Peterson exposes the problems with chivalry on campus. "Despite the frog-brained attempts of hippie, dippy bra burners to kill it, there are young, eligible bachelors who adhere to standards of good taste and form. If "hippie, dippy bra burners" get in the way on your next date, e-mail me. Then I'll know that I've only been dreaming.

"Give him a chance," the article adds, "unless he genuinely frightens you." This isn't revolutionary; this is bad Cosmo.

Alas, bad Cosmo will never help the conservative cause. Who wants to party with these guys? Campus neophytes seem forced to choose between the bland but "sane" liberal establishment and their crazy conservative cousins. Where do you think most fence sitters would go? I checked out some other of these conservative magazines at other college campuses around the country, and while many of the online publications are somewhat less alienating, others catch my attention.

Among them are The Princeton Tory, which features an exclusive article with a recovering homosexual, and The Cornell Review, which has this Oct. 23,1997 item posted on its web page: "America is the only country where the poor people are fat, not frail. This is unequivocal proof that the welfare benefits -- and, for that matter, the wages -- that we give these people are way too generous."

The Independent, Georgetown's other conservative journal, has reacted to the upturn in reactionary conservatism by losing its political and ideological edge. I don't even know if its staff considers itself conservative anymore -- the last issue stayed away from those issues. That's what's happening to the more thoughtful of America's would-be campus conservatives. It's not cool to be that way. And where conservatism takes a hit, so does the Republican party. When liberal is the better of two evils, Democrats win. It's a simple formula. The right might tell you that the liberals are the enemy, but shouldn't they care how it's packaged? That's obvious, but I wouldn't tell them. They're a bit sensitive.

E-mail Jeff DeMartino at demartij at gusun dot georgetown dot edu.