The toughest part of responding to Hung Vu's column ("Lighting Up," March 16) is knowing where to begin. Vu proves to be a difficult writer to endure grammatically and a master of logical non sequitur. Even less impressively, his simplistic attack on President John T. Casteen, III reveals a glaring ignorance of political history and corporate governance. Perhaps worst of all, Vu takes it upon himself to ascribe motive to Casteen's decisions, and he cannot manage to do it respectfully or with any trace of humility.
Based on Vu's assessment of where Virginia stands on some mythical hierarchy of state progressivism, the Commonwealth has been taking steps "forward" by electing Democratic governors and "going blue" in 2008. Following Vu's proxy for progressivism, does he also think that Mississippi was progressive when it went heavily Democratic in the 1952 and 1956 presidential elections or that Alabama was sufficiently progressive when segregationist Democrat George Wallace was governor? Maybe Vu should take a history class rather than blast a trumpet about his social psychology pursuits.
It might also be a good idea for Vu to read something about what a corporate board does. A small amount of education could go a long way toward explaining what a company with over $16 billion in revenue does other than exploit children with cigarette ads (hint: it includes providing jobs and health care to employees, financial return to investors and, in 2008, over $48 million in charitable giving).
Vu manages to flail around wildly in his last few paragraphs, simultaneously dismissing and embracing fundamental attribution error, equating "Jeffersonian ideals" with hypocrisy, and, cheaply, summing it all up by deciding that one explanation exists outside the realm of Vu omniscience: "the decision was just Casteen being Casteen." How enlightening.
Vu worries about broad-brush geography-based "stigmas." Maybe he should first consider the "Vu being Vu" stigma that he now bears so prominently - the combination of poor journalism, tawdry reasoning, and unfounded invective.
George Craddock\nDarden '10
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