Political Open Thread: A Tale of Two Commencement Speeches [Y-not]

So, the Thought Police won again. Former Secretary of State Condeeleza Rice will NOT be speaking at Rutgers after all:

Former U.S. Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice backed out of giving Rutgers University's commencement speech today amid growing opposition among the school's students and faculty.

In a statement, Rice said she informed Rutgers President Robert Barchi that she has decided not to give the May 18 address.

“Commencement should be a time of joyous celebration for the graduates and their families. Rutgers' invitation to me to speak has become a distraction for the university community at this very special time," Rice said.

Well done, Rutgers. Well done.

Seriously, this sort of thing really pisses me off. ESPECIALLY in Dr. Rice's case since she, unlike most politicians, is a bona fide scholar. Although I suspect her domestic politics may be too "centrist" (aka liberal) for my personal taste, I think she's a very impressive politician and individual. You have to be a real knuckle-dragger to object to the former Provost of Stanford University speaking at your commencement.

I'm offended more as a scholar than I am as a conservative by the disgusting behavior of those Rutgers faculty and students.

Meanwhile, across the country at Utah Valley University, this was the commencement speaker:

Wes Moore is a youth advo­cate, Army com­bat vet­eran, social entre­pre­neur, and host of Beyond Belief on the Oprah Win­frey Net­work. His first book The Other Wes Moore became an instant New York Times and Wall Street Jour­nal bestseller.

Born in 1978, Wes and his sis­ters were raised by their wid­owed mother. Despite early aca­d­e­mic and behav­ioral strug­gles, he grad­u­ated Phi Theta Kappa in 1998 as a com­mis­sioned offi­cer from Val­ley Forge Mil­i­tary Col­lege, and Phi Beta Kappa from Johns Hop­kins Uni­ver­sity in 2001, where he also played foot­ball and earned a bachelor’s degree in Inter­na­tional Rela­tions. He then became a Rhodes Scholar, study­ing Inter­na­tional Rela­tions at Oxford University.

After his stud­ies, Wes, a para­trooper and Cap­tain in the United States Army, served a com­bat tour of duty in Afghanistan with the 1st Brigade of the 82nd Air­borne Divi­sion. Wes then served as a White House fel­low to Sec­re­tary of State Con­deleezza Rice. He serves on the board of the Iraq Afghanistan Vet­er­ans of Amer­ica (IAVA), The Johns Hop­kins Uni­ver­sity, and founded an orga­ni­za­tion called STAND! that works with Bal­ti­more youth involved in the crim­i­nal jus­tice system.

I think the citizens of Utah are better served by their university than are the citizens of New Jersey.

Just sayin'.

Open thread.

posted by Open Blogger at 01:07 PM

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