reaching out...with a slammed door?

[acroyear]

At a McCain-Palin rally at Penn State, the president of the university was asked not to attend.

Dynamics of Cats : Disrespecting the President:

Usually, as a courtesy, and to do some contingent social networking, the President of the University [Penn State], Graham Spanier, will either introduce or greet such speakers, unless physically unavailable.

The University President will not endorse any candidate, to do so would be inappropriate, possibly counterproductive, and just foolish, but meeting with candidates and offering a introduction or pre-introductory greeting is routine.

Except this time, President Spanier was asked not to attend the event, according to the Collegian, the PSU student newspaper.

I infer that the reason it came up that this happened, is that a democrat visited later in the week, and the PSU President was seen with them, so presumably the university wants to head off any accusations of partisanship or implicit endorsement by them, even unofficially.

Apparently the reason Spanier was asked to not attend is because the campaign discovered he is in fact registered as a democrat...
Various implausible deniability assertions are being made by public spokescritters on both sides, but the bottom line seems clear.

I can not put into words how f#@king stupid this is.

I thought the McCain-Palin campaign in part ran on its ability to reach out and work with non-republicans, part of the whole maverick theme, right? Right?

Things like this are why I could never become a University President.