Hatred for Obama not the same as hatred for BushIn response to Matthew Albright’s column about a child asking President Obama why people hate him, Alex Lauve kept his response polite and rational, which I deeply appreciate, especially in the current polarized political climate. There are a few important factual points that should be added to the discussion, however.His questions about the president’s patriotism aside, Lauve says of the vitriol leveled at the president that “that’s part of running for the highest office in the United States.” To a certain extent, of course, he is correct: every president has to put up with some hardballs. It’s even healthy … to a certain extent.But Alex is wrong to brush all the things said about Obama under the rug by saying the left did the same thing to Bush. Did the left say awful and sometimes inexcusable things about the most recent President Bush? Yes. Are those things entirely comparable to what is going on today? No.A recent article in the Boston Globe points out that the number of death threats received by President Obama is 400% that of those received by President Bush. One might ask, is this jump significant? Well, Bush got about 3,000 threats per year, on average, according to a recent book by Ronald Kessler.   It is safe to say, then, that a jump to 12,000 threats per year is highly significant, being many standard errors away from the previous level.So no, the stuff going on now is emphatically NOT the same as what Pres. Bush had to deal with.One hardly has to wonder as to the cause. Extreme right-wing people like Timothy McVeigh have always considered the federal government to be the number one enemy. Far-right groups are also far more likely to be racist and xenophobic (e.g., the KKK).  Now there is a black man with a scary name in charge of the hated and feared federal government! Is it any wonder that the number of death threats has spiked so dramatically?As a bit of an aside, one must wonder how wise the speculations on Obama’s legitimacy in the press (e.g., Fox) are, given the current obvious powder keg.  Surely we bear some responsibility for tolerating such hate-filled lunacy as comes out of the mouth of Rush Limbaugh and Glenn Beck.  The onus is on us to call out dangerous and socially damaging statements around us. I don’t mean to threaten free speech; I am speaking here of toleration of hate speech by individuals in society rather than society acting in concert to ban speech through government.I have gotten several forwarded e-mails from family members to the effect of “Obama is dangerous and is not legitimate,” some going so far as to call him the anti-Christ. If President Bush was called the anti-Christ, that was wrong. Is it any more right to bait the nuts who want to kill the current president just because the same thing happened to a much, much smaller degree the last time around?Chris Brittphysics graduate student- – – –Alleva accusation unjustifiedDear Editor,I am writing in response to Stephen Wolf’s column titled “Choice of Alleva as athletic director still puzzling.”  What is truly puzzling is why Mr. Wolf chose to attack Mr. Alleva with unsubstantiated statements about his handling of the Duke lacrosse situation, a bizarre accusation about steroid use by Duke student-athletes and one-sided criticism of his history of hiring coaches.I am curious what behind-the-scenes knowledge Mr. Wolf might have about the Duke lacrosse situation that he can be so definitive in declaring that Mr. Alleva mishandled the incident.  It should be noted that, among the numerous lawsuits filed in the aftermath of the lacrosse incident, Mr. Alleva has been named in none of them. Mr. Wolf was quick to list the losing records of a football coach and a baseball coach hired by Mr. Alleva, but failed to point out the new competitiveness of the football program under David Cutcliffe and the SEC basketball title won by our own Trent Johnson, both of whom were hired by Mr. Alleva.  Duke won six national championships and 44 ACC championships during Joe Alleva’s tenure as AD, so it is unfair to focus on the failures of only two of the coaches who worked under Mr. Alleva at Duke.Although the Reveille made it clear in bold face type Mr. Wolf’s “views do not represent those of the paper or its staff,” I hope the Reveille will use more discretion in the future in providing space for accusations that are damaging, inflammatory and are presented with no or poorly-presented support.Herb Vincentassociate vice chancellor and senior associate athletic director- – – -Contact The Daily Reveille’s opinion staff at [email protected]