Charles Kesler Talks Obama and Progressivism on PJTV

My friend James Poulos interviews Charles Kesler about Obama and liberalism on PJTV. (runtime: 17 minutes, 40 second). Well worth watching. 

Congratulations to all the Government Award Winners, With Correction and Update

Mike Whatley CMC '11 and Andrew Grimm CMC '11 won the two highest awards the Government Department can bestow, that of Best Government Student and Best Government Thesis. 

Whatley had the highest G.P.A. in the major, so he was the natural choice. Good on him.

A previous version of this post was inaccurate. I have been informed that my sources on the government department list were mistaken or I failed to understand them properly. The conversation on the awards, apparently, was wide-ranging and so there was some confusion as to how it occurred by the professors I spoke with.

Either way, the onus is on me to get it right and I apologize yet again. Grimm apparently won the best government thesis award by consensus, according to Professor George Thomas, his thesis reader, who emailed me this morning.

The close vote I mentioned previously was between me and unnamed student who won best thesis to address public affairs. (I was apparently nominated for both  awards.) I do not know who that student is, but I wish her all the luck as well.

Again, congratulations to all of the of my fellow Government honors and please accept my apologies both for getting it wrong. It was what I had heard, but apparently I heard wrong. As the news source with the most traffic on campus, I have an especial obligation to get it right. Anything else is not acceptable. Given my critics, I must hold myself to a higher standard. Contrary to popular perception, I am still human and so I ask your forgiveness. I don't often get things wrong, but when I do it is incumbent upon me to apologize.

I'll try harder next time. Sorry. You deserve better, and I'll try to provide it before I retire from The Claremont Conservative in May or June.

Grimm and I competed for Best Government thesis, with his work on debt winning out against my work on Coolidge. 

The vote was very close between different factions of the Government department, with 6 votes in his favor, 5 votes for mine, and 6 votes abstaining. This is, as best as I understand it, unprecedented in the history of the department. More often than not, the decision is by consensus. Here a vote took place. 

I confess to being very confused with this result, especially as I don't see how it was possible for both theses in contention to have been read, merely a day after we had to hand them in. My own readers haven't been able to read all of my thesis, so I don't know what rubric the decision was made. 

All that aside, congratulations, Andrew. 

Please accept my apologies. I did not acquit myself well and whined when I found out on Facebook and for that I am sorry. I quickly removed the short bit, but it was inexcusable and classless. If you want to know what I said, I will try to remember -- I didn't save it -- but I won't repeat it here. Please know that it was not a reflection on my fellow students but because of my own weakness. I guess you can't win 'em all and some you never could have won, anyways.

Let's quash the rumors before they start, though. I won't be making the awards ceremony on May 4. I'll be in Los Angeles on a family matter.