Going toe-to-toe with Benson at Tuesday’s forum
After our Campus Press class meeting last Wednesday, my editor motioned for me to sit down next to her. “Max, would you be willing to write an opinion piece about Bruce Benson?”
Like most CU students, I don’t care about campus politics, but it takes me forever to come up with my own topics to write about. So I agreed to write it.
I decided it would be an anti-Benson piece from the get-go, because all I knew about him was that he’s a conservative Republican oil man with no experience in education. I’d even thought of my satirical angle already-since CU is overrun with stupid white business majors, a stupid white oil tycoon would be a perfect president.
A few days later I saw a flyer for an open forum with Benson at the UMC. I decided it would be a good idea to see him in action before I wrote my opinion piece, since it’s pretty lame to just poke around on the Internet for a few hours and then pretend you know what you’re writing about.
But in order to get some background, I did sit down at my computer and read all of the Campus Press stories about Benson. One story reported that during Benson’s first open forum with students, he told them that he supports women’s issues, and if he doesn’t, his wife will keep him in line. This was in response to a female student in the audience pointing out that Benson contributed to Sen. Bob Packwood’s defense fund in a sexual assault case.
That’s when I started to hate Benson. Most male politicians know by now that you can’t answer questions about your insensitivity to rape by saying, “Heh, heh, women!”
Then I heard that he threatened to kill his ex-wife. That story broke when he ran for governor of Colorado in 1994 and his divorce papers were made public. He even admitted to threatening her in an interview with the New York Times.
Now I really hated him. The afternoon before the forum, I frantically copied and pasted little scraps of articles I wanted to use into an empty Word document, the whole time muttering witty little come-backs to the stupid things he’s said. For example, when asked about his two DUI’s, Benson replied, “If you don’t learn from your mistakes, you will never be successful in life.”
So I cleverly muttered to myself, “Learn from your mistakes? Apparently you didn’t learn from your first DUI.”
Then it suddenly occurred to me that instead of matching wits with an imaginary Benson in my empty apartment, maybe I should go to the forum and ask him if he really threatened to kill his wife. Five seconds later, when I realized I was actually going to do it, my stomach rolled over and I started hyperventilating.
I called my friend back in Massachusetts for a pep-talk. He thought the whole thing was hilarious, and I felt better until I got off the phone. Then I panicked again.
I typed up a question to ask Benson. It referenced his support of Bob Packwood in the rape case, Benson’s death threat to his ex-wife, and his comment about his wife making sure he remains an advocate for women. I ended it with, “It seems like you have some problems with women. How do you respond to that?”
I quickly printed it out and half-ran to the UMC. When I got inside, the first person I saw was CU spokesman Bronson Hilliard. I said hi, and he asked me if I had a good question for Benson. I told him I did.
He said, “I wouldn’t expect anything less.”
“I’ll try not to disappoint you,” I said, grinning.
Inside the ballroom, Benson kicked off the festivities with a five-minute speech during which he only talked about how much money he will raise for CU. He was utterly oblivious to the fact that not a single person in the audience gave a damn. Then the question and answer session began.
Representatives from UCSU opened up with a few questions about diversity, which Benson answered with long, blundering statements about all of the minorities he has helped during his career. One example he gave was that he worked hard to make Metro State “Hispanic-serving.” He went on to tell us that he accomplished this by figuring out how “the minds” of minorities work.
Several people in the audience winced. Others, myself included, laughed openly.
A UCSU representative pointed out that the word “diversity” includes the GLBTQ community and students with disabilities. Benson responded that he is going to advocate for all students, including “handicaps.”
More winces this time. Less laughter.
Then the tri-executives opened up the forum to the audience.
After Benson butchered several questions about his plans for saving the environment, a girl in the back stood up and asked him what he was going to do to support the gay community at CU.
Benson replied, “Do you know who Tim Gill is? Do you know who he is? He’s a big gay in Colorado.”
The entire room erupted in laughter while Benson tried to explain that he meant to say “gay activist.”
A few questions later, a guy stood up and announced that he’s a PhD student studying racial and gender stratification. Then he said, “I’m wondering, is it true, as the New York Times reported in 1994, that you told your son you’d like to kill his mother?”
I frowned, disappointed that someone else got to say it before me. Then I realized that I could save my question by including the fact that Benson has already admitted to threatening to kill his ex-wife.
Benson’s defense began, “I have this saying-I used to have this saying, ‘I’ll kill him.’ You know? I’d say, ‘Oh, I’ll kill him.’ I don’t say it now because it’s gotten me in trouble before,” he chuckled. “But did I threaten my wife? No, of course not.”
A few minutes later a guy with a microphone came over and told me I was next. I immediately broke a sweat, my testicles shriveled up into little raisins, and my heart started beating so fast it felt like two rabbits were having sex in my ribcage. I took deep breaths and closed my eyes, and I pictured Luke Skywalker watching the two suns set on Tatooine.
Then the microphone guy tapped me on the shoulder.
I took the microphone from his hand and stood up. My fingertips immediately went numb. I realized I only had around two minutes of standing time before I would faint.
“Hi, I’m Max, and I’m a senior in psychology.” My voice boomed through the speakers. I unfolded my piece of paper. “The tri-executives have asked us to consider your biographical information in our evaluation of you as a candidate,” I said. “So here’s some biographical information: In 1992, you contributed money to Sen. Bob Packwood’s defense fund when he was accused of sexual assault and abuse by ten women. In 1994, not only were you accused of threatening to kill your ex-wife, you publicly admitted to doing it. She also filed a motion in court stating that she feared for her safety.”
People gaped at me. Some of them were laughing, but many were glaring at me, as though I had snuck into Benson’s underwear drawer and stolen his diary.
I continued, “You also admitted to having an affair for two years before you asked for a divorce.” The audience interrupted me with a gasp.
The microphone guy put his hand on my shoulder. “Give me the microphone,” he said.
“And here at CU, earlier this month, you said that you’re very proactive for women, but if you’re not, your wife will make sure that you are. It seems like you have some problems with women. How do you respond to that?”
By this time both of my arms were completely numb and my legs were tingling up to my knees. The microphone guy tried to grab the microphone from my hand but I pulled it away.
Benson shook his head. “Don’t try and tell me I’m opposed to women. You know, I hate questions like that. You haven’t done your homework, and you ought to do your homework. I never threatened my wife, and you can ask some of the women I’ve worked with, they’ll all tell you the same thing. I don’t have any problems with women. The Denver Public Schools foundation is all women.”
Amazingly, the audience broke out in applause, happy to see me discredited.
As they clapped, the edges of my vision began to yellow and darken.
“Just because-” I began, and then stopped. They had cut my microphone. “Hey!” I said. “My mic stopped working!”
UCSU’s chief of staff appeared behind me and whispered, “You have to sit down right now.”
I shouted to Benson, “Just because you know some women you haven’t threatened to kill-”
I was cut off by a roar of disapproval from the audience.
One student twisted his face in disgust and said, “Hey, c’mon man! Talk about the qualifications!”
“Well, there are a lot of women here at CU.” I said. “And I think they’re probably going to be concerned about this!”
Benson fired back, but I couldn’t hear him because the UCSU chief of staff leaned close to my ear and said, “If you don’t sit down, I’m going to kick you out.”
“Okay,” I said, still standing. If only he knew that I would have fallen down all by myself if he just waited thirty more seconds.
“Right now,” he said. “I’m going to kick you out right now.”
“Okay,” I said. He didn’t respond. “I’ll sit down once he stops answering my question,” I said. He gave up, nodding.
I don’t remember what happened immediately after that because I was blacking out, but when I sat down several people were staring at me and I was holding a pink piece of paper that said “Warning” at the top. It was list of rules concerning interference with university activity, interference with the freedom of expression of others, harassment, and refusal to leave property when asked to do so by a chief administrative officer.
As far as I could tell, I hadn’t broken any of those rules.
The next couple of students to speak apologized to Benson for the behavior of “some students.” The chairwoman of the College Republicans even pointed at me and announced that she was embarrassed to be a student of the University of Colorado.
The topic of Benson’s death threat to his wife was not raised again.
After the forum ended, I saw CU spokesman Bronson Hilliard talking to a student. Knowing that he was the editor in chief of the Colorado Daily until last year, I thought he would have appreciated my hard-hitting question, and I was curious about what he thought of the angry response I got. I walked over and leaned on a chair near him, and he ignored me. Thinking that he was in the middle of an important conversation, I waited for three minutes.
At last he turned to me and said, “Do you need something from me?”
“I just wanted to say hi,” I said.
“Yeah, you already said hi. Goodbye.”
I almost said, “You know, you don’t work for him yet.” But I didn’t. Instead, I trudged home with my friends, exhausted and in the early stages of a migraine. I plopped down into a chair and thought about what had happened.
An hour later, my irritation at the general forgiveness of Benson’s misogyny had grown to rage.
Are we supposed to only ask Benson nice questions? And when he publicly admits that he threatened to kill his wife, should we pretend we don’t know about it?
And why did someone turn my microphone off? Though the content of my question obviously cast Benson in a bad light, it was a genuine question, and I asked it as respectfully and quickly as I could. Why can’t the sole candidate for the presidency of CU be asked if he hates women?
Can you imagine if President Bush admitted that he threatened to kill his wife? There would be a public outcry. How come there’s no outcry now? Does the average CU student’s desire to appear docile and obedient supersede the outrage provoked by a man so disgusting and stupid that he threatened to kill his own wife?
Well, friends and neighbors, as much as I make you ashamed to be CU students, you make me ashamed to be a human being. How could you sit in your chairs like jellyfish while this monster of a man spewed bigoted, insane nonsense for two hours? And then you get mad at me for not being nice to him.
You know what? A school of idiots deserves to have an idiot for their president.
He’s got my vote.
Contact Campus Press Staff Editor Max Karson at max.karson@colorado.edu
