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YAF: Students who attacked Rove should have been punished

A spokesman for a national conservative student group is expressing outrage that no punitive action was taken against the American University students who attacked White House adviser Karl Rove on the Washington campus. He calls the attack a classic example of how liberals on campus really view tolerance and diversity.



More than a dozen American University students recently tossed rocks and other objects at Karl Rove and his car after he delivered a speech to the campus group College Republicans. The demonstrators, who said they wanted to make a "citizen's arrest" of President Bush's top political adviser, also surrounded Rove's car to prevent him from leaving. Campus police had to forcibly remove some of the students from the path of his vehicle.

Jason Mattera, a spokesman for the Young America's Foundation (YAF), says such violence is routinely carried out by the left on campuses across the U.S. "You never have College Republicans or young conservatives targeting, say, Al Franken or Michael Moore and lying down in front of [their] vehicle trying to physically harm them -- or, let's say, trying to make a citizen's arrest on Barack Obama or Hillary Clinton.

"No one on the right ever does this," says Matterra, "and it's because we are civil and we are the true proponents of intellectual diversity."

According to the YAF spokesman, his group has been the target of similar attacks by liberal students on university campuses. He cites instances when conservatives like Ann Coulter, Pat Buchanan, and David Horowitz were targeted during events sponsored by his organization.

"Again, [this treatment is] coming from the left, who preaches tolerance and diversity," he says. "Yet when we put Ann Coulter or David Horowitz [or other conservative spokespeople] on stage ... the left doesn't revert to actual intellectual dialogue or any type of dialogue -- they revert to throwing food or other things at the speakers."

Mattera says the students who harassed and attacked Rove should have been brought up on criminal charges and expelled immediately from the school.