Karl Rove is coming to campus on November 3, the night before the [insert grandiose adjective here] Presidential election. Last night, Treasury approved an “emergency” $35,000 appeal to bring the ex-Bush Chief-of-Staffer to the Lou. If you’re just now hearing about this, it’s because the appeal was brought up too late to make it into StudLife. Suspicious? Not at all!

You may recall that College Republicans paid about the same price last year to bring former Attorney General Alberto Gonzales to Wash.U., which incensed many students and community members. His rather uninspiring rags-to-riches, anyone-can-do-it story/speech happened in the midst of an all-out protest, with people in orange jumpsuits and black hoods as the proverbial cherry on top. CPC paid Margaret Cho a similar amount of money, which, if I recall correctly, was also hotly contested. Hopefully one day student groups will learn that not everyone wants to hear their speakers as much as they do and that they should just donate their money to WILD. I wonder how many students would go see Karl Rove over Kanye West if they had the choice.

Rove will be speaking in Graham Chapel – more details as they become available.