In response to Dan Tarvin's Oct. 29 letter "Audience behavior at debate troublesome, lacked respect," I must agree with his assessment of the crowd's behavior throughout the debate.

With such notable political figures as Howard Dean and Karl Rove speaking at the same event, my friends and I had high expectations for the debate and the quality of each side's arguments.

We also expected reaction from the crowd, but not the to extent in which it occurred.

Many of the jeers and screams across the room seemed disruptive in nature and eventually caused a slight inequality in time spent on rebuttals or arguments between both participants.

At the beginning of the debate, I was happy to see both Dean and Rove take the debate seriously and provide their differing thoughts, whether or not I agreed with them. This is one of the essential aspects of a formal debate.

However, the apparently one-sided shouting by the audience proved to be destructive toward the purpose of the debate and, in many ways, disappointing.

Emmanuel Fonseca

senior-physics and astrophysics