As I drive to Sarasota and back this weekend, y’all contemplate this commonsense speech by the president:
bradwarthen.com
All The News That Gives You Fits
As I drive to Sarasota and back this weekend, y’all contemplate this commonsense speech by the president:
The full text of the speech can be found at this link:
http://www.freep.com/article/20100501/NEWS15/100501010/Full-text-of-Obama-s-speech-to-U-M-grads
People always talk about Obama’s intelligence, but it’s the bigness of his heart and vision that continually strikes me. His ability to see multiple sides of every issue.
Brad, in light of the little discussion about Obama and his supposedly “thinner” connection to the specifically British roots of our democratic traditions: can you read this speech and have any doubts about what one might call “Anglo-American” traditions of liberal democracy being interwoven into every cell of his being?
Phillip, thank you for the link. I agree with you. President Obama’s vision, and his willingness to hear those he doesn’t agree with, and to try to work with them, indeed his understanding of the necessity of compromise, make him an outstanding president.
Phillip, thank you also for the link. I actually decided to go to the White House site to read it. I wish I could recall who said it but I heard an interviewee on a news program respond that President Obama is quite reasonable, but the noise was so loud on both sides of the spectrum, it doesn’t come through. The President seems to me really concerned for the people and it does appear that his vision includes fairness and justice. The speech was a great view of his vision and a great challenge to the graduates and to me.
I read the speech. It was a good, typical, valedictorian type graduation speech you would expect, but this one was from a politician, and it was tinged with a little political opportunism. He was campaigning in front of his audience in the form of a commencement address, and he made all of the right comments and used the appropriate platitudes at the right moments. IMHO, trying to make it anything else is a bit of a reach.
If we all heeded the words in the soaring commentary of every speech delivered to a graduating class, the world would indeed be a much better place. Work together, responsibility, character, charity, education, understanding, and all of the other descriptive words meant to tie us all together are nice, but, about 10 minutes after the speech, most of the graduates will start to worry about jobs, jobs, jobs, and jobs as their first priority. I suspect the moms and dads are having the same concerns, since the likelihood of their just college graduated offspring will be staying at home with a lot longer than they would have about 5 years ago. And, they can stay on mom and/or dad’s health insurance until they are 26.