Tiffany Fisher recently submitted a viewpoint about entertainer Kanye West's speech concerning Bush's response to Hurricane Katrina relief. Although I personally found her response weakly stated and uninformed, it is not her words that I am choosing to gripe about. As a relatively informed 21-year-old, I have always wondered why celebrities are so often in the limelight of social and political events.

I commend such celebs as Diddy for his attempts at getting younger Americans to vote, and Angelina Jolie for her humanitarian efforts worldwide. In fact, many celebs contribute loads of money each year, as do athletes, corporations, small businesses, and thousands of other everyday citizens.

Celebs' good acts are, of course, welcomed. However, donating money does not give a person credibility as a speaker. Being a celebrity does not give Kanye West, for example, the right to indict the president and accuse him of acting with racist intent. Had a reputable, knowledgable source such as James Carville stood up and given the same speech under fact-based precepts (as he would have), would Ms. Fisher have contributed her comments to the Sept. 20 edition of the Tribune? Likely, Carville, a world renound debater on many subjects, would never have made such comments in the first place.

My point is this: In all my searching I couldn't find a Web site that listed any scholarly information about West. Maybe he's self taught, maybe he went to Yale, maybe he watches a lot of CNN. But I can say this much: I truly hope we haven't sunk so low as a nation to utilize the speech of a rapper when considering the racial preference of our president. Kanye, if you have something to say, stick to writing music — your contributions there will be appreciated, but leave the speech giving to a more knowledgeable speaker who can adequately cover the issues at hand.

This viewpoint was published in The Marquette Tribune on September 27, 2005.