Perhaps, dear reader, you have heard of the Duke lacrosse rape scandal. If not, we, the crack young staff of “The Hatemonger’s Quarterly,” have the sneaking suspicion that you were born either yesterday or today. Actually, make that definitely today: If you were born yesterday you should have heard about it by now.

Given the great media attention paid to the case, you are likely aware of the infamous so-called Group of 88. These much maligned Duke professors put forth a shoddy advertisement presuming the guilt of the three Duke lacrosse players, and encouraging the deeply intellectual protesters at Duke to continue their deeply intellectual protests by waving deeply intellectual flyers reading “Castrate.”

Well, thereÂ’s mud on their 88 faces. As it turns out, the Evil Rich White Males on the Duke lacrosse team didnÂ’t commit a rape. Go figure. Apparently, DNA evidence (read: Rich white male science) was amongst the manifold things that exonerated the boys. How awful: Some radical professors have a point to make about the evils of Amerika, and a little thing like innocence gets in the way.

Accordingly, our charming Group of 88, who can usually be found nattering on about the horror of presuming the guilt of Gitmo detainees, blithely presumed the guilt of their own students. This is the sort of thing that Alannis Morissette, if she were a bit brighter, would label ironic.

In the Group of 88Â’s defense, however, we need to point out that the lacrosse players are Rich White Males, and therefore evil and immediately suspect. Q.E.D. So perhaps you can forgive our delightful faculty members for getting the nooses ready. We mean, come on: Osama bin Laden deserves the presumption of innocence, but we ought not extend it to Reade Seligmann.

From our vantage point, dear reader, we are having a hard time determining who looks worse in the Duke non-rape scandal aftermath. The witless and mean-spirited Nancy Grace; the unhinged Mau-Mau artist Houston Baker Jr.; the pusillanimous and devious Dick Brodhead; the slimy and incoherent Grant Farred; the obnoxious and smarmy William Chafe—my God, when was the last time you saw such an impressive lineup of exquisitely guilty folks? Nuremberg?

And we haven’t even mentioned Mike Nifong yet. Nor, we might add, the false accuser, whose name we won’t mention in order to protect her identity, but which rhymes with “Dystal Gail Mangum.”

To make matters even more delicious, The Chronicle, Duke UniversityÂ’s student newspaper, has offered sundry opportunities to the Gang of 88 to engage in self-satisfying hand-wringing. Accordingly, our tenured professors have presented the general reading public with an impressive congeries of completely unsatisfying arguments.

Our advertisement didnÂ’t presume guilt, they say. Oh, sure: These are folks almost pathologically attuned to perceived grievances against various minority groups, and yet they canÂ’t tell when theyÂ’ve blatantly wronged Rich White Males. If we werenÂ’t so sure that this was a bald-faced lie that the Group of 88 obviously doesnÂ’t believe, weÂ’d be upset. But, frankly, dear reader, we can only laugh at such fatuity.

And now, as The Chronicle recently reported, the 88 Delightful Pedants can’t stop waxing horrific about the horrible treatment they received at the hands of Al Gore’s minions—i.e., the “webloggers.” Oh, dear Lord: It’s getting to the point where one can no longer unfairly malign defendants in court cases by presuming their guilt and not catch a little flak.

Is this where are country is heading? If so, we might just head over to Cuba—a country whose current government many in the Group of 88 presumably esteems.

Posted by: Chip at 12:01 AM | No Comments | Add Comment
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LetÂ’s say, dear reader, that you are itching to send us an entry to our Fourth Annual Horrible College-Student Poetry Competition (details of which you can read here). But let us further say that, despite your understandable desire to whip up an acceptably horrible bit of doggerel, you havenÂ’t the faintest idea how to begin. What, you wonder, are the telltale signs of wretched, sophomoric verse?

A good question, that. And we, the crack young staff of “The Hatemonger’s Quarterly,” have taken it upon ourselves to inspire you to reach your “bad poetry potential,” if you will. As non-poetasters ourselves, we feel as if we can only teach by others’ examples.

To this end, dear reader, we have tracked down a suitably tin-eared poem, so that you can learn by studying its myriad defects. We think youÂ’ll thank us for it.

And where, you may ask, did we find a fitting exemplum of atrocious balladry? Why, at one of the most natural of outfits: A “website” called Poets Against War. As you might very well expect, this sort of e-outfit offers the perfect sort of pseudo-poetic drivel soaked in sanctimony. From our hasty perusal of its contents, we could tell that much of their stuff simply screams “Bad College Verse.”

Examine, for instance, a mercifully short ditty by one Faycal Zouaoui. As the Poets For Capitulation “website” makes clear, Mr. Zouaoui is actually 28 years old. Accordingly, he’s no longer a college student—unless he’s a very, very poor study. Even so, we feel as if his verse is in some ways charmingly university-esque.

But you neednÂ’t take our collective word for it:

A witness within

That lifer-world is so insane
How did it to rest in Peace?
In a guilty brain
Within a man
On the run

That’s a real piece of garbage, isn’t it? Note, for instance, that the first two lines are uncommonly ghastly and make very, very little sense. “How did it to rest in Peace”? Did this guy learn English a few days ago? Can you craft an uglier line?

In fact, we think that this little piece of poetic palaver is so terrible on a functional level that it lacks the all-knowing snootiness one associates with pertinacious undergrads. Where’s the “I Know that War Is Never the Answer Because I Took Sociology 101” tone? Where’s the “Women Studies Taught Me That the Military Is Fascistic” hectoring? Come on, Mr. Zouaoui: We think you’re coasting.

And thus we exhort you to do better. Send us your unspeakably bad pseudo-college poem by May 5, 5:00 pm EST. Perhaps your verse will answer that question of the ages: “How did it to rest in Peace?”

Posted by: Chip at 12:01 AM | No Comments | Add Comment
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Remember, dear reader, when our lefty pals considered Ronald Reagan the very embodiment of the anti-Christ? We sure do. Back in his presidential days, poor Ronald Reagan found himself on the receiving end of endless amounts of withering liberal scorn.

“That idiot will bring us to nuclear war!” “That moron’s an actor; he doesn’t know what the heck he’s doing!” “That fool will starve us all!” These were just a handful of—comparatively respectful—taunts that President Reagan had to endure.

We, the crack young staff of “The Hatemonger’s Quarterly,” mention this, dear reader, because these days you might have forgotten that anyone disesteemed the charming Ronald Reagan. After a solid decade of arguing that President Reagan was a mixture of Mao, Stalin, and a retarded sixth-grader all in one, our lefty pals suddenly look back upon his years in office with what appears to be genuine nostalgia.

It’s curious, is it not? Sure, they might have reason for feeling a bit of latter-day respect for Reagan. After all, whilst our liberal buddies were mindlessly plumping for a nuclear freeze (read: Utter capitulation to Communism), President Reagan went about ending the Cold War and freeing millions. Further, Reagan’s formerly controversial economic policies have been—to a greater or lesser extent—adapted by governments worldwide.

But our friends on the Left haven’t let Reagan’s triumphs determine their belated embrace of him. No, no, no: They simply use him as a counterpoise for their new Presidential Enemy Number One—Chimpy McHitler himself, George W. Bush.

You know the old saw: At least Ronald Reagan had some good points, argue our lefty buddies. Sure, he didnÂ’t fund dental dam research as much as you might want, but, heck, he was right about the Soviets. It turns out that they were somewhat, uh, bad. In fact, Reagan makes Bush look like a fascist. Blah, blah, blah.

Thus does the LeftÂ’s former neo-Hitler give way to the new neo-Hitler. And never, of course, will the lefties admit that they were wrong in their former estimation of Ronald Reagan. Nope: They just press on with their most recent example of vilification.

There will come a day, dear reader, when liberals reflect on the dreaded George W. Bush and say something such as: “Well, he was incompetent, and the Iraq War was a disaster. But, gee: At least Bush had principles. In comparison with the contemporary Republican Party, he seems like a breath of fresh air.”

Oh, it seems far off in the distance now—and it is. But mark our words: It’ll come.

Yet donÂ’t bother to wait for our lefty pals to apologize for their brutal excoriation of the current Commander-in-Chief. TheyÂ’ll be too busy with their latest straw man to make amends.

Posted by: Chip at 12:01 AM | No Comments | Add Comment
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