Some 1,200 students and faculty had signed petitions asking the university president, former Nebraska Sen. Bob Kerrey, to rescind his invitation for McCain to speak, saying McCain's support for the Iraq war and opposition to gay rights and abortion were not in keeping with the prevailing views on campus.More details from Ari Berman's blog at The Nation:
Kerrey urged students to exercise the open-mindedness he said was at the heart of the university's progressive history.
"Sen. McCain, you have much to teach us," Kerrey said toward the beginning of the ceremony, drawing a smattering of boos and hisses.
The Senator spoke in a dull monotone, without his usual charisma or charm. He was noticeably deflated by the crowd's harsh reception towards him. Remarks such as "I supported the decision to go to war in Iraq," were met with loud boos.I just read that last block quote to my son John. So, what do you think of that -- yelling out "Wrongly!"? John: "He's just asking for it when he phrases it like that."
"I stand that ground because I believed, rightly or wrongly, that my country's interests and values required it."
"Wrongly!" one student boomed from the back. Sitting directly behind us, Maureen Dowd and Adam Nagourney of the New York Times, chuckled.
As McCain droned on, students became increasingly restless. One cried, "This speech sucks!" Several students walked out early.
Yeah, McCain. Get some better speech writers. Don't lob softballs at the hecklers.
And isn't he, really, just asking for it by going about giving speeches at politically liberal colleges? He's taking advantage of an opportunity, a shot at a captive audience that's under tremendous social pressure to sit still and listen. How hard can you be on the audience that also sees fit to take advantage?
Yeah, yeah, everyone should be respectful and civil. It would be better to find what you can appreciate about a man of his stature when he deigns to appear at your institution -- his service and suffering in wartime, his long years of statesmanship. But I'm not going to get too exercised about this -- and I doubt if he is.
UPDATE: More details here:
Mr. McCain seemed uneasy, but stuck to his script and did not acknowledge the barbs. As [a student] had predicted [in one of the earlier speeches], he spoke about the importance of civil discourse, and he reiterated his defense of the war.Were the students inappropriate if he was inappropriate? He ought to have shown up prepared for the occasion. At the very least, he should have prepared a graduation speech and not a political speech. A genuinely with-it politician would also have come prepared to talk directly and spontaneously to the situation unfolding in front of him. You can go on about the students' rudeness if you want, but what is more important is whether he's a politician who has what it takes to run for President. The fact is he sleepwalked through what could have been his moment. But Mr. McCain seemed uneasy... stuck to his script and did not acknowledge the barbs.
"I believe the benefits of success will justify the costs and risks," he said. The protests grew louder and more frequent as he spoke. Some graduates walked out. Others laughed. When Mr. McCain returned to policy after briefly quoting Yeats, someone shouted, "More poetry!"
At another point, someone yelled, "We're graduating, not voting!"
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62 comments:
Sounds as though he was asking for it, if "it" is the 2008 Republican nomination.
I respectfully disagree. When I was in college in the Sixties - hardly a harmonious time - it was still possible for speakers of all viewpoints to communicate without members of the audience turning the event into a circus. Our campus had Robert Kennedy, Barry Goldwater, Hubert Humphrey, Dick Gregory, Allen Ginsberg and others speak without any rudeness. Make no mistake. These disruptive students are no friends of freedom of speech. Shrug at them today and it will be worse two years from now.
I don't much like McCain, but not for the reasons these New School for Socialist Research students don't like him (I can't forgive McCain-Feingold). But you think it's impossible to expect a crowd of graduating college students to sit and listen respectfully to a speaker with whom they disagree? That's pretty scary. I thought the point of a college education was to develop intellectual acuity and the ability to reason and learn from different arguments.
The last I heard, commencement ceremonies were optional. If one can't make it through a speech without behaving like drunken groundlings then stay home and have them mail your diploma.
I actually have first-hand experience with this exact scenario. When I graduated from Yale in 2001, President Bush was awarded an honorary degree and was asked to give a short speech. Much of the same antics ensued, the groaning and shouting and hissing and back-turning, but Bush took it in stride and just made jokes. Someone kept shouting "C minus" in reference to Bush's GPA (I don't know if it's true or not) and Bush quipped "You graduate from Yale with a C and you can be president. You drop out (referring to Cheney) of Yale and the best you can do is vice-president". This was several months before 9/11, when even I couldn't stand Bush, but I didn't make any catcalls. I doubt it would be possible for him to make the same speech at Yale (or any other university) now. Apparently even a moderate like McCain can't either.
But try to boo Tony Kushner or Hillary Clinton at a commencement. See how that goes over.
Sounds as though he was asking for it, if "it" is the 2008 Republican nomination.
Agreed, one has to wonder if the morons in the crowd who heckled him realized that they (a) just made John McCain even more palatable to moderates and (b) just strengthened his bona fides amongst conservatives while (c) making the Left look like a bunch of jackasses.
Normally I can't stand when college students do this to speakers they disagree with. Free speech only for my friends! Dumb, dumb, dumb.
But, this is their commencement. This is supposed to be about them. And, they went the civil route, first, with the petition.
Ann,
"Tremendous social pressure"?
Maybe, but I'd hope the pressure would resist such immaturity--or, in modern parlance, such assholiness.
Should he, or anyone, be exorcised over a bunch of boorish spoiled children?
Sure...Their parents.
making the Left look like a bunch of jackasses.
How do you know it's the left?
"http://www.realcities.com/mld/krwashington/14622000.htm">No one likes Bush anymore.
You guys are just deadenders in the last throes of your passion.
Suppressing speech is a characteristic I find mostly on the right.
Liberals are too pansy-assed traitors to take such an aggressive step as yelling.
It's amazing how rude today's youth can be. I expect my youngest niece, whose politics are slightly left of Trotsky would behave as badly.
I went to the University of California during the peak (1968) of the Vietnam War. We students weren't as rude to our elders at formal events like graduation.
Whether you agree or not with McCain's politics, he's a true American hero and a suitable speaker for a graduation ceremony. Those students could learn much from him about honesty, loyalty, heroism, and keeping the faith with your friends. Unfortunately he didn't give that speak, though I wish he had.
His book, Faith of my Fathers was a great read. He was honest, and admits the NVA broke him. Everyone can be broken, given enough time and enough pressure. His message was that you should not give up information too soon, and you should make them earn everything they ultimately wring out of you.
Not everyone knows that his father was the Commander in Chief in the Pacific when McCain was in the camps. The NVA knew that and offered young McCain special treatment, but he refused, They offered early release and he refused.
The man is a hero, regardless of his politics.
There's no doubt in my mind that the majority of those students were embarassed and angry at the hecklers because
1) the hecklers political views are NOT representative of the views of all or even a majority of their fellow students
2) the hecklers lack of civility is an aberration, not the norm at that college
3) the vast majority of students believe McCain deserves deference due to his age and experience
I went to a college known for being liberal, and when those 1 or 2 people in class, whether they were professors or students, started on one of their rants the eye-rolling began.
The majority's liberal impulse to be tolerant of different opinions, even if those opinions champion being intolerant to other opinions, allows intolerant self-identified liberals to monopolize attention. (read that sentence again, it makes sense I promise)But that doesn't mean the majority of students don't recognzie the loudmouths for what they are.
Dicks.
John Jenkins, I see what you're saying.
I guess my point, stated more clearly, is why are politicians giving political speeches at commencements? Shouldn't it just be some sort of touchy-feely-go-take-on-the-world deal?
And isn't he, really, just asking for it by going about giving speeches at politically liberal colleges?
Should anyone who's made the pilgrimage to Liberty University be taken seriously at a credible institution? Where's he off to next, Bob Jones U.?
If you want to see egregious commencement behavior, it would be Jody Foster, trying to rap to the graduates at University of Pennsylvania.
"And isn't he, really, just asking for it by going about giving speeches at politically liberal colleges?"
Well, preaching to the converted is fun and all, but periodically, all conservatives are required to undergo the hazing ritual of going out and prosetylyzing to the heathens. ;)
I have much more fun - and I honestly think it's more productive - posting at blogs like Althouse, Prawfs and Concurring Opinions, where you're mostly talking to people who disagree, but who are open-minded and can debate (disagree, even) for the most part without the monotonous rancor of most left-leaning sites.
It seems like to the extent he was asking for it, in the speech he's sayg, let's respect one another whether I was right or wrong. In that context the student looks like an ass; he's asking them to talk to each other respectfully whether they think he was right or wrong, and the student is missing the point. Or worse, getting it and rejecting it.
P.J. O'Rourke once quoted a friend's mother as asking him and his then-collegiate leftwing friends "why do you have to have such terrible mores in order to defend admirable morals?"
A boor is a boor.
McCain, I am sure, knew he would be horribly maltreated and went with that hope. Being treated so shabbily by such a despicable crowd will be worth many, many votes among the right. Not my vote (never - not even to defeat Hillary) but I am not everyone on the right.
Well, Ann, you may well ask "isn't he, really, just asking for it by going about giving speeches at politically liberal colleges?"
Well, I'll ask you if you self-censor your teaching - and avoid using the considerable "social pressure" you can exert in the most unequal power-dynamic of the teacher/student relationship - so as not to offend 'liberal' sensibilities.
And I think it's worth pointing out that the 'politically liberal' are just the people who bitch and moan that the right (particularly the Bush White House) live in an Orwellian echo chamber where never is heard a discouraging word. Well you can't have it both ways, darlings.
Jennifer got it right. Commencement is about honoring the graduates. McCain's address was a political stump speech. Sure, proper political discourse is fine and good, but political discourse of any sort isn't the point of a commencement ceremony. The students should've kept quiet and listened to what he said? I bet most of em already knew what he was going to say, word for word--seeing as how he gave them the same speech as Liberty. I'm a huge McCain supporter, but if someone's idea of an address at my commencement is to recycle a stump speech to further their own presidential ambitions I will not be impressed.
Is anyone really upset by this? And if so, why?
Believe it or not, I think this was a win-win situation. McCain got paid for a phoned-in stump speech and a little more publicity than is normal for the occasion (and gets a little conservative street cred from the further right). The students got one last chance for an ostentatious display of self-righteous anger before having to go out into the cold, cruel world and choose between their ideals and paying their debts.
The system works!
I do think the war in Iraq (no matter the opinion of the speaker) is not an appropriate subject for a commencement speech (the only appropriate subject is "We've screwed up, hope you can do better").
John McCain is in a process of trying to figure out where to position himself for the election of 2008. In this case, the wrong McCain showed up for this audience. Had the McCain of the "Straight Talk Express" shown up, the response might well have been different. Instead, a McCain showed up who was trying to justify his voting record on the Iraq issue. I, for one, don't mind that politicians take time to figure out "who they really are" before entering an election year. You could argue that McCain is old enough to have figured out who he is by now, but the political dynamics (red-blue) have so changed in the last ten years, that politicians need to keep constantly reinventing themselves in order to keep in tune with the electorate. While I feel sad that the students couldn't have had a more pertinent speaker for this one last celebration of their college years (mine was Bob Hope, and he was wonderful), I also believe that we should cut McCain some slack, respect his many years of service to his country, and let him prepare himself for the next presidential election. We'll have ample time to judge all these people in 2008.
I was not at the Commencement, so of course I don't really know what happened -- but if I had to sit through a political stump speech during my commencement, I don't think I'd be respectful and quiet. Bored young adults do unfortunate things.
If McCain gave a speech on his life story, that would have been more interesting, and maybe more appropriate.
And here we see the usual definition of free speech, lefty style:
Speak left: How courageous!
Speak Center: Not allowed. Shouted down.
Speak Right: The Devil! Get Him!
Maybe a commencement speech is supposed to be "about" the graduating class. So what? The inability to respond to such adversity as the wrong speaker or the wrong speech without attempting to disrupt the proceedings is not only evidence of immaturity, or arrogance, or incivility.
It portrays the "ugly left" in its purist form: rigid, intolerant, uninformed, bullying, and wholly un-American. They would have fit in well at a National Socialist rally in the 1930s, a Cultural Revolution attack on a bourgeios professor in the 1960s, or a Year Zero "re-education camp" in the 1970s, disciplining or killing their own parents (a group McCain had direct contact with, BTW). It's all the same: a love for the totalitarian, a ken for being a boot on the human neck.
How shameful. What a crap school.
Both sides lose. Schools for inviting people with political or otherwise axes to grind ....... the extraordinarily privileged generation of graduates living in an incredibly free society, who, I suspect, for the most part have rarely experienced a moment of extreme strife and discomfort (excepting of course the time that the *&%# cell phone battery ran out), who have not been taught an ounce of graciousness or good manners, who view booing an ultimate act of courage and who after 15 or so years of schooling do not understand the concept - freedom of speech.
Maureen Dowd and Adam Nagourney of the New York Times, chuckled.
More profiles in courage.........
The result is that the students get stuck listening to stuff they do not want to hear.
Oh dear......
Someone they agree with.
Why? God forbid someone should attempt to awaken dormant brain cells
"Since Liberty University routinely beats the Ivy colleges at debate contests your narky comments need a little revisiting."
Whoopee. And I suspect Liberty's fencing team sometimes beats Yale's in competition. Sorry, but it'll be a cold day in Hell before anyone serious considers Liberty University or Hillsdale (and I could name other right-wing degree mills, but I'll be nice today) as being universities of any real intellectual stature. Reputable conservative think-tanks like AEI prefer to hire Ivy League grads or grads from good public and private schools (i.e. University of Texas, University of Wisconsin, Rice, Duke) ahead of grads from the right-wing degree mills. For that matter, it's no accident that you don't find many Liberty grads working at major law firms, Fortune 500 corporations or other employers that have selective hiring criteria. Elizabeth's snark is quite warranted.
That having been said, I don't think the New School students behaved properly here. While McCain may have been giving a lame stump speech, booing him doesn't do much for the causes they are trying to promote. If you are a politically mature person, you should always consider whether your actions are helping your side or hurting it. While there is a time and a place for venting and making it clear what you really think about your adversaries, a public ceremony with a US Senator on the podium isn't the right time and place.
If they're going to shout him down, I wish they'd shouted him down for McCain-Feingold. What a mess that left us with.
These students weren't mad because it was a political sppech. They're mad because it was given by a conservative. Anyone who tries to say different is being disingenuous. If it was Dean up there they would have been swooning.
OK, so Bob Jones U represents intolerance... I suppose this incident doesn't? I love how rigid ideology on the right is ridiculed, while identical behaviour on the left has been excused a hundred different ways in these comments alone.
Well, it would seem to me that it's Prof. Althouse's university professor colleagues who generally inflict their political views on captive audiences who have to sit still, listen, and pretend to agree (as I did). Is Prof. Althouse saying that it's fine to inflict your political views on an audience that doesn't share them so long as you possess the power to punish dissent, but that McCain is foolish to say something controversial when he lacks that power? That's an interesting, kind of quasi-Stalinist, point of view. It does explain why the classroom lectures at most colleges skew rather to the left of the alumni fund-raising solicitations, though.
Given McCain's history, an hour in front of a bunch of folks armed with signs and a attitude, hardly seems like much of a problem for him. He knew what he was getting into, whether it smart to do it, in the way he did it, is another thing.
I'm just glad there's no record of what I did at that age, other than a transcript and a diploma. There's lots of ways to be stupid.
A poster characterized the atmosphere on campus as monochromatic. How true--and how sad. The ideologues are not able to debate their dogma and don't feel they have to.
Showing their asses is somehow apt. Let's just hope that the silly protest du jour does not escalate into something more dangerous.
I'm inclined to agree with Thorley, John Jenkins & co.
(Linked back to this post.) McCain might have handled it better, but it mostly makes the left look worse than ever.
But, Buck Turgidson: giving the same speech at both (or all 3) venues was a deliberate decision and statement. It might not have been good theatre, but he was saying, "I have the same message for both sides." It was also a way of protecting himself from the accusation that he'd given something special and exclusive to Falwell, that he'd favored the far right in sme way.
Mark: Stump speech or no, it is perfectly appropriate to talk to graduating college seniors about what it means to be an active citizen of a democracy. Wouldn't it have been "so September 10" If he'd talked about sunscreen?
Dear dick, politicians go to Liberty U. not to woo the bright students but to pay homage to Jerry Falwell. No revision of my "snarky" remark is necessary. Falwell is a hack, a boil on the butt of the GOP. But year after year, decent people make their deals with the devil that holds the religious right political power. Shame on them, and shame on the voters that keep rewarding them for that compromise.
I think our political season would be much more fruitful if we didn't have a reverance of politicians. Why not call out questions and comments? Why not demand that they not stick to the script? Why treat American politicians like monarchy, or honored guests? Make them work for respect, and take their chances with the voters, in person. I have quite a few things I'd like to nail Dean on, by the way.
Elizabeth: As a republican, I agree about Falwell, et al. The media continues to grant these guys stature and the politicians feel compelled to respond. While I may agree with Falwell, Dobson, Robertson on many issues of faith and politics, they don't represent me. I suppose the same can be said of NAACP or NOW, its the lowest common denominator and over simplifies the issues.
Who's gonna win the runoff?
SteveR, it's too hard to poll this one, with thousands of voters living outside the city still. There's probably around 25,000-30,000 votes from evacuees, so those are a wild card. Landrieu is polling higher in the city limits, but this one is too close to call.
Landrieu has my vote, but I won't have a heart attack if Nagin wins. He's a terrible speaker, but he's not totally incompetent, and he's as clean as we've ever had in terms of patronage and doing business. He's not going to be dispersing contracts to close friends and family.
"Why not call out questions and comments? Why not demand that they not stick to the script? Why treat American politicians like monarchy, or honored guests?"
It's about civility for its own sake and for democracy's sake, not as an honor that we bestow on someone. What would happen in the classroom if every time an English prof brought up Norman Mailer, for instance, half the students shouted down the teacher because Mailer is not feminist-approved?
A few boos is one thing--but pies in the face and organized intimidation is another.
dick, prove that no one on the left criticizes Al Sharpton. Good luck with that.
Pat, a politician making a stump speech and a teacher in a classroom are not comparable. Students aren't being asked to vote for the teacher; the teacher isn't demonstrating his or her plan or platform for holding office. Civility is overrated; we end up with bumpter-sticker slogans, the worst people running for office, the press reducing the public discourse to the most shallow of questions, officials who feel beyond any public accountability other than the vote, and an intrenched incumbancy.
No one shouts me down in my lit courses, but every student has the opportunity and right to speak. Do you see that happening at political speeches?
Well, Elizabeth, permitting people to speak freely when you hold their future in your hands is pretty hollow. Are you suggesting that I would have done myself some good by raising my hand and objecting when my literature professors referred to Nixon and Kissinger as war criminals? (Not that I have strong enough feelings on the topic to object, other than the objection in principle to taking up classroom time with silly left-wing politics.)
somefeller: Sorry, but it'll be a cold day in Hell before anyone serious considers Liberty University or Hillsdale (and I could name other right-wing degree mills, but I'll be nice today) as being universities of any real intellectual stature.
I won't speak for Liberty, but I know several alumni of Hillsdale, and I would be loath to denigrate their intellectual capacity, or that of most of their professors. The Hillsdale grads I know are damn smart people, many of whom continued on to highly rated graduate or professional programs in their field. I attended the "other" UW, which is a university with real intellectual stature, and I'm convinced that outside of my fabulous experience in Washington's classics department, my Hillsdale friends received a liberal arts education superior to mine.
Sean, all I can tell you is that I did raise my hand and disagree with my professors in college. Over and over, in undergrad and grad school. That was the atmosphere fostered in the university I attended. I allow that same atmosphere in my classes. The image of college as a brainwashing center where students are forced to march in lockstep just isn't one that I've experienced. I'm not saying you didn't, but I also think that it's a self-fulfilling prophecy. Student sits and smolders, then leaves class and says of COURSE he couldn't state his opinion; everyone KNOWS the professor would fail him just for being a _______ (fill in the blank.)
Somebody missed the point of the speech!
Exactly -- why go to a graduating ceremony and talk about yourself, and not the students (I'm assuming that's what he did -- I wasn't there).
Does anyone here even remember who their graduation speaker was? I left college almost 25 years ago...I have no clue who spoke -- I vaguely recall spending most of my time chatting with the other people in my major who were graduating. I wonder if the boo-ing graduates will recall who spoke 25 years hence. I wonder how many were sober.
But Mr. McCain seemed uneasy... stuck to his script and did not acknowledge the barbs.
Ann, am I reading into this that perhaps you were intimating a parallel?
Wow, I couldn't disagree more, Professor Althouse. Now, I _love_ to see a speaker engage with hecklers (nobody will ever beat Schwarzenegger's "That guy owes me bacon!", shouted after someone threw an egg at him) and it would be particularly fitting given McCain's call for dialogue.
But, sheesh, it's a graduation. God's most boring event (I've skipped all of mine: but been dragged to some). Of course he sleepwalked it. The dialogue would've, rudely, done what the students implied: made the whole thing about McCain and a McCain campaign stop. That might've been good politics but it would've been really crappy etiquette, no? And there's no question McCain can give as good as he gets, when he has to -- if anything he needs to go the other way.
"Now, I _love_ to see a speaker engage with hecklers (nobody will ever beat Schwarzenegger's "That guy owes me bacon!", shouted after someone threw an egg at him)"
No one can rip a heckler a new one like George Carlin. Unfortunately, Carlin's method of dealing with a heckler is unrepeateable on a family blog. ;)
Elizabeth, your posts indicate that you not only find this behavior being excusable but desirable! Civility is overrated? Really? You've written plenty of posts at this blog in the past that indicate you don't really believe that.
And Al Sharpton was one of the Seven Dwarfs in 04... Shame, indeed.
knoxgirl, thanks for that question, and for indicating you find me civil. I appreciate that.
I'm speaking about this incident, and about what I think is an overrated concern for civility between us, the electorate, and them, the politicians. They are too insulated. I don't see anything wrong with an audience responding to a speaker, with boos, or with cheers. No pies! McCain wants to be president--why shouldn't that be a hard row to hoe? Why should he, and any politician, not face more than polite, orchestrated interviews on TV? I just think our politics should be more interactive, and we shouldn't be hushing each other up out of wrong-headed respect for political office.
He's got enough speechwriters, surely, to whip different pieces up for occasions X and Y.
And you'd think he'd be able to talk about his audience, not himself, on such a day.
I have to agree with Elizabeth -- would there be any comments on this if the audience had been similary rude, but in a positive sense, constantly interrupting McCain with cheers and loud applause? Granted, the politician might enjoy the huzzahs, but if you drown him out so your neighbor can't hear, aren't you being as rude as a boo-er? Why is it that only challenges to politicians are perceived as bad things?
I sent that too soon -- maybe that would be an effective strategy...engage protesters not to boo, but to cheer overenthusiastically and drown out the speech!
That way, everyone is happy!
"Do you see that happening at political speeches?"
Yes, how about Ray McGovern arguing with Rumsfeld last week, for one?
And to me, it's not the end of the world if the students act up at graduation, but in times like these, before you know it, you're not printing cartoons because you don't want your building burned down, or speakers aren't showing up without bodyguards. I hate to utter the overused "slippery slope" analogy, but it bears watching.
New School, for a college is about as liberal as it’s possible for one to get (which, for a university, is obviously really saying something). I’d surprised if McCain didn’t know what he was getting into.
Given his animosity with evangelicals in the past, I do get a kick out of the fact McCain can go to its rightwing equivalent, Liberty University, get a civil reception, and then get heckled by leftists at New School before he even begins speaking. McCain should have expected this, but only for the same reasons everybody should have expected this out liberal activists at college campuses nowadays. There are too many examples of conservatives (Clarence Thomas, Scalia, Condi Rice-who actually is a liberal on some major issues, etc.) getting this kind of reception at schools that are much less liberal than New School. I would have been surprised, on the other hand, if McCain received this kind of reaction at Liberty. I would have been surprised if Bill Clinton received this reception at Liberty.
Yeah, he should have expected it, but I’ve sat through too many liberal speakers at school events (and given civil receptions) giving politically tinged speeches (to be fair they probably don’t even realize it-listening to the talks, it seems to always be just a question of doing good vs. wanting to destroy the world) during my time at college and getting a J.D.--for commencement, honorary degrees, take your pick--that I have little sympathy for people who can’t stomach one conservative giving a speech. (This goes double for the fact I will continue to hear it implied by other students and profs that liberals have a monopoly on tolerance and open-mindedness.)
"What doesn't come through in the excerpts printed of McCain's speech (that was, evidently, the same one he have at Columbia College Class Day) is that it wasn't a political speech; it was about having the responsibility as an educated American to argue your position, to defend your views and the morality that underpins them. One of McCain's key points was that students must argue passionately, but they must also remember that those they argue with aren't their enemies, they are simply their political/ideological opponents."
Valkyrjan, what also doesn't come through is that his speech was protested weeks before he ever said a word. I'd have more sympathy if he was the first politician ever to be invited the speaker to a college on graduation day, but if he had got up there and read the Democratic Party platform or given the usual "you are the future" spiels he still would have been heckled by leftists.
Some thoughts:
1) McCain should have done a short, student focused speech, with just a few words that argued perhaps one important point (maybe Iraq, or healthcare). But most of the speech should have been about the students, and he should have considered the liberal inclinations of the audience and locale.
2) The students should have shown a bit of maturity by not closing ears to a voice they disagreed with. Nothing in the world gets solved that way.
3) Those who are busting on colleges likes Hillsdale, Liberty and Oral Roberts ... can you offer proof for your assertions? Or is it that you just don't know anyone from those colleges? One ought not to call a place a degree mill, if the school actually has entrance standards and requirements, and especially if one really knows nothing about the schools. Go do your homework, give us some stats, prove to us that graduates are all unemployed hacks, then come back and enlighten us.
Simon, I went to a Carlin show the other night and you are correct. His first response was to mention that the stage was designed for sound to go our from it not the other way around. the next things he said were not repeatable but there were no more interuptions.
McCain says that we should argue passionately. If that's the case, why his sustained attack on the First Amendment?
I have voted for some pretty uninspiring Republican presidential nominees, like Bob Dole and George Herbert Walker Bush. But I don't know why anyone who cares about the right of freedom of speech would support John McCain for President.
And isn't he, really, just asking for it by going about giving speeches at politically liberal colleges?
It may be a university, but just keep in mind that this is the University ofNebraska.
And this was the student body, not a bunch of Professors.
Keep in mind that Nebraska is not exactly a bastion of liberalism, a state in which every single county has voted Republican in the last several Presidential elections. It would have been tough even a couple of years ago to find any significant group of people in Nebraska willing to be identified as 'liberal.'
And as for university students, if the student body is sliding to the left even in a place as conservative as Nebraska, then it is certainly the case that liberals are the ones getting educated, and they will own the future (yeah, there are private schools, but the number of people they graduate every year isn't even close to the number that graduate from state universities, especially when you subtract out the liberal private schools like the Ivy league and Brandeis).
you're not printing cartoons because you don't want your building burned down
Pat, I should think that example supports my point precisely. Politicians shouldn't not speak out of fear of questions, or boos; rather, they ought to have something to say, and be prepared to defend and explain themselves.
I don't have any fears that Americans are going to start burning houses down over speech.
"We love you Bill."
(Shouted by a student, following a joint commencement address by Presidents George H.W. Bush and Bill Clinton at Tulane University, May 13, 2006 and shown on C-Span May 20, 2006.)
It seems to me he was doing his friend a favor, not "taking advantage" of anything. Bob Kerrey must have felt awful. (I'll bet John Kerry did too, when he read about it.)
I disagree with McCain on several issues, but I also admire him, and feel protective of his dignity. I still like to hope it was distasteful to most Democrats to see McCain treated so shabbily by a bunch of privileged kids. The idea that they probably think they were doing something "brave" just makes me throw up.
" Does anyone here even remember who their graduation speaker was? "
C. Everett Koop, a year retired as Surgeon General.
Good speech, good man. Odd looking hair and beard, which made it easy to pick him out on the platform with the other folks in robes.
(No protests. Less divisive times. Though some of his actions may have been viewed as "controversial", there was more a feeling that we're all in this together, back then. Sigh. 1990. The good old days.)
1. Why is the tactic of shouting down an invited speaker predominantly (and frequently) practiced by the left?
2. When did "liberals" move so far afield from the term as to embrace behavior that is its precise opposite, illiberalism?
3. Are college lefties inherently illiberal? Or is it learned slowly over four years, through courses and a general campus ambience that breed intolerance, incivility, and balaknization of victim groups?
Elizabeth, it only proves your point if you equate shouting someone down, or other abusive behavior, with asking questions. I don't.
So, you say tomato, I say tomahto...
I take back what I said, as I finally took the time to actually look over the full text of the speech. D'oh! As others have pointed out, it is certainly not a stump speech; one out of 33 paragraphs is devoted to the war, and even that is in a greater context about the importance of vigorous debate in a democracy.
Mark:
Kudos for being willing to examine the evidence, and not only change your mind but be seen to do so. I should try it more often. :)
Scott:
You're right. One of my best friends is as far on the left as I am on the right, but he gets a lot of points for being able to make his case passionately but respectfully. He doesn't often change my mind (or vice versa), but he is a pleasure to argue with.
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