Putting together and rehearsing a dinner theatre production with Under the Lights has been an enjoyable experience. Sure, there was that time when the actor who played the ambassador careened into the potted plant in the wheelchair. In a particularly painful rehearsal someone may or may not have said, “What’s scary is that we’re actually performing this for people.” Every play has its own fair share of problems.

Prominent blogger Andrew Sullivan paid a visit to the Claremont McKenna College Athenaeum on Thursday for a speech and a Q&A session. I spoke to Sullivan for a few minutes before the dinner. On the concept of blogging, he pointed out that there was something great about being able to participate directly in politics without having to dress up, put on makeup, go on TV or even get out of bed. I asked him how he feels about being recognized as one of the pioneers of the “new media” to which he replied, “I’m amazed,” and said that it seemed so obvious that that was the path we were going down. He offered one of the best metaphors about blogging that I’ve ever heard: “I’m more like a DJ than a songwriter,” he said, “My job is to take pieces of news and mix and scratch.”

Sullivan’s speech was a sharp critique of the post-9/11 political climate of the United States and the impacts of the Bush administration’s actions of constitutional liberty in America. “How did we get here?” Sullivan opened, asking whether Bush and Cheney will henceforth be viewed as an “aberration of the Republican Party” or its foundation. He pointed out that in the first 10 days of the Barack Obama presidency, we have managed to “restore constitutional order,” after seven years of a “crisis of constitutional order.”

Sullivan exclaimed that after the attacks of September 11, 2001, former President George W. Bush was “out of his depth, overwhelmed,” and decided that the rest of his presidency was going to be about preventing another 9/11. Around the same time, said Sullivan, Vice President Dick Cheney “took over American government and continued to control it for the next seven years.” Sullivan expressed skepticism regarding Bush’s claim that he “kept us safe,” pointing out that “we don’t know if the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan created more terrorists than they killed.”

After 9/11, Sullivan alleged, George W. Bush “forgot that his first job and oath of office was to protect the Constitution, rather than the United States mainland,” and that Bush, in “suspending Habeas Corpus indefinitely,” has shown no understanding of the difference between the two. Sullivan expressed profound concern over the breaches of the constitution and immense expansion of executive power under Bush. In the War on Terror, the enemy is a metaphor with no army or any geographic boundaries, which means that the war may continue indefinitely. “If the war never ends,” said Sullivan, “these powers are permanent.”

The lovely New York Times columnist Maureen Dowd graced CMC with her presence last evening in what was the closest thing to a 40-minute orgasm that the Athenaeum has offered in my three and a half years as a student here. Ms. Dowd was as witty, entertaining and sharp in person as she is in print.

Secretary of Homeland Security Michael Chertoff spoke last week at the Claremont McKenna College Athenaeum. Needless to say, it was a very popular event and the Athenaeum was packed with students, faculty and guests.

The heart of Chertoff's speech was about the future of the global politics, the goals that leaders must strive toward and the United States' role on the international stage. He reminisced about America's ideological struggles against fascism, totalitarianism, communism and most recently religious extremism.

Chertoff urged a balanced philosophy between realism and idealism, positing that both are vital to global progress. In other words, all decisions must be based on hard realities as well as a vision for the future and a strategy by which to achieve it. We shouldn't sit back and resigning ourselves to the fact that present realities can never change. He firmly stated his view that the ultimate goals of society must be freedom, democracy and tolerance.

This past Wednesday I had the really awesome opportunity to see Michael Chertoff, current Secretary of Homeland Security, speak live at the Ath. I had noticed that he was coming when I read the Fortnightly when it came out online, and of course jumped on it, and encouraged my roommate Rishahb to do the same, which he did. Thanks to my timing we both managed to get in the dinner, which (unsurprisingly) filled up rather quickly.