Tuesday, June 26, 2007

Never too Young for Chutzpah

Once again I find myself worrying about whether it is too early in the week to announce the Chutzpah Award. However, Tim Dickinson has cast a vote over on the Rolling Stone site; and it is worth honoring as a viable candidate. Here is the entry (in its entirety) from Tim's blog:

We should all be as fearless with our moments of opportunity as the 50 high schoolers named as Presidential Scholars were with theirs yesterday.

On the very day the Supreme Court moved to eviscerate student first amendment rights, these kids handed an open letter to the president at the White House ceremony in their honor. It went like this:

“We do not want America to represent torture. We urge you to do all in your power to stop violations of the human rights of detainees, to cease illegal renditions, and to apply the Geneva Convention to all detainees, including those designated enemy combatants.”

Talk about stand and deliver. That’s chutzpa!

I am willing to forgive Tim for ignoring the approved spelling of chutzpah (although I am not quite sure that I should be using the Oxford Shorter English Dictionary as a standard for a Yiddish word). I also wonder if this is more like a how-sharper-than-a-serpent's-tooth award; but there is definitely a strong sense of chutzpah in using a White House ceremony to attack White House policy. The week may be young, but these kids have now set a high bar for this week's award!

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