It's Tiananmen!

Bob Kerrey, President of the New School, chimes in on the John McCain / Mark Salter / Jean Rohe smackdown, defending the restraint and lauding the courage of the New School students who heckled John McCain:

That said, I now speak in defense of the behavior of my students – the minority who protested and the majority who did not. On the surface, some of the tactics of the protest were rude, noisy, and disrespectful. Less obvious, however, was the self-restraint that prevented the protestors from behaving in a fashion that would have shut down the commencement or made it impossible for Senator McCain or me to continue. Though many in the audience – including Senator McCain and I – were offended by the heckling, at no time were we in danger of not being able to proceed.

"Less obvious was their self-restraint".  Mr. Kerrey is scaling the comic heights, but reaches the pinnacle in the next paragraph:

More importantly -- and also lost in the charges and counter-charges -- is this fact: student protests are a necessary and essential part of democratic free expression. Did we not love the brave and disrespectful students at Tiananmen? Did we not applaud the determination of the student led movements that helped bring down the dictators that ruled Eastern Europe in 1991? Have we forgotten the critical difference students made in reversing an unlawful election in Ukraine or in driving the Syrians from Lebanon or who still seethe in discontent under the religious law of Iran’s mullahs?

Well - it must be delightful for the New Schoolers to have their President pandering so, but I hope they have learned enough to realize that no, when you are in the heart of New York City surrounded by thousands of like minded progressives, standing up to a solitary seventy year old man is not Tiananmen.

Although to her credit, even after McCain brandished his service revolver and threatened to call in air strikes, Ms. Rohe did not flinch.

McCain's speech here.

Comments

[clarice]

BARF!! I am starting a new graduation tradition: Placing rotten tomato stands outside college graduations so that those who are sick and tired of these narcissistic hijackings (by speakers who see these as an opportunity to spew their stuff to captive audiences and papier mache head posers) of what should be a pleasant family occasion can make their feeelings known.

Perhaps looking out at an angry, armed,crowd of prickly parents will do more to change the tenor of these events than anything else.

[Lesley]

Shame on You Bob Kerry

[Ugh]

Placing rotten tomato stands outside college graduations so that those who are sick and tired of these narcissistic hijackings (by speakers who see these as an opportunity to spew their stuff to captive audiences and papier mache head posers) of what should be a pleasant family occasion can make their feeelings known.

Are you talking about McCain?

[clarice]

I'm talking about any speaker who makes a political speech at a graduation and any group which determines it make use such an event to oppose the presence of an invited guest.
If I have to sit in the sun in a crappy wooden chair with gnats buzzing around to shoe my love and joy for some graduate, the least the speakers and attendees can do it keep it on a non-political level--You know, the world is in your hands, or something amusing about life or anything non-political.

I remember Cong Dornan saying after 9/11 the best way to protect air passengers was to hand every one of them a loaded revolver at boarding. In the same vein the best way to protect the attendees at these events is to hand them a rotten tomato as they enter the fete site.

[clarice]

***which determines to make use **shoW not shoE*****8

[Lesley]

Courage to speak (I would assume "Truth To Power)? In the USA? Yeah, right.

Should there be any graduates from the New School who happen to survive more than five years in a POW camp, I'll call them courageous. Ofcourse, they'd be doubly courageous because they'd have to sign up for the US military first.

Outrageous pandery on Kerry's part.

(Dang, there goes my New Year's resolution to be as calm and circumspect as Dorothy Rabinowitz. I need a WWDD - What would Dorothy Do - bracelet.)

[clarice]

DR is one of my heroines,too, for speaking out when no one else would about the fraudulent child abuse prosecutions.

[ed in texas]

(In tribute to Don Adams:)
They were bravely standing up to fascist TANKS!... would you believe massed National Guard troops... would you believe the grounds keeper had a Cushman golf cart parked outside...

[clarice]

"Greg Gutfeld wrote, "Let's face it: I was pretty fearless. I mean it takes a lot of courage to criticize a Republican conservative right in front of an audience of Democrats, academics, liberals, and radical vegans. http://www.usnews.com/usnews/opinion/leoblog/archives/060524/mccain_again.htm.>fearless we march in papier mache heads

[HeloTom]

Met Senator McCain long ago and admire him, especially for his service in Vietnam. We share some similar history, but I never got into politics.

There has been too little real debate on Iraq; Senator McCain is in an unusual position to bring real leadership to this issue. He does not do this, so the students are right to complain.

Really appreciated Ms. Rohe's comments and hope that more young people speak out on this critical issue.

[maryrose]

Never an excuse for bad manners. Their parents should have taught them better. Proper behavior starts at the top =if their president Kerrey is willing to give them a pass to avoid Lawrence Summers' fate so be it but they take their cue from him.

[maryrose]

HeloTom
You'd be interested to know that MS Rohe had a smiling picture taken with John McCain 15 minutes before the ceremony and then proceeded to stab him in the back with her speech. A rather two-faced performance all around.

[capitano]

Bob Kerrey is a victim of the Academy's version of the Stockholm Syndrome, so his comments need translation, as follows:

Everything you need to know about successful leadership in higher education you can learn from Larry Summers' experience at Harvard -- never, ever challenge the faculty or student body. I took this lesson to heart and I have no problem praising the self-centered students who embarrassed me, the school, the majority of students, and John McCain.

It was their Steven Colbert moment and I am not going to deny them their triumph.

[Ugh]

Me: Are you talking about McCain?

Clarice: I'm talking about any speaker who makes a political speech at a graduation and any group which determines it make use such an event to oppose the presence of an invited guest ....

A simple "yes" would have done, but thanks.

[Lesley]

Clarice: I used to watch Dorothy Rabinowitz with rapt fascination and unbounded admiration on the previous incarnation of The Wall Street Journal's Week In Review. Cool, calm, and always in control of the facts. A woman of genuine intellectual substance.

[The Unbeliever]

Tiananmen... Eastern Europe in 1991... Ukraine... protesting the Syrians in Lebanon... opposing Iran's mullahs...

Yeah, because taking cheap shots at a war hero in an auditorium in Manhattan is exactly like those situations. Just as brave, just as risky, just as heroic. Sure.

If I criticize Bob Kerrey over the Internet from the comfort of my nice leather chair, do I get a Protestor's Medal of Honor too? Can I start comparing myself to Thomas Paine now, or do I have to print out my comments and leave them on a Starbucks counter for anyone to take?

[Cecil Turner]

Here's the speech, which I found remarkably inoffensive. Combined with his recent call for more nuclear power, that makes two things I agree with him on since . . . well, as long as I can remember. (It's a streak!)

[HeloTom]

Maryrose,

Thanks for your remarks.

Ms. Rohe said she got no response from Senator McCain when they were introduced; he just kind of looked down. She decided at that moment, we are told, to proceed with her revised speech that she wrote at about 2 AM the night before.

So, maybe she was gunning for him; or maybe she was mainly incensed over the loss of lives and treasure in Iraq. Read what she has written and judge for yourself.

Senator McCain set himself up with a speech that really revolved around a self-serving message of "let's be tolerant" about a war that was not debated well before and has been mismanaged by an administration he actively supports. The decision to invade Iraq has been judged by some high-ranking Bush41 Administration Officials as "..the worst strategic decision.." in recent history.

As Bob Dole used to say, politics is not bean-bag. Since Senator McCain presented more of political speech for his candidacy, than a true commencement address geared towards his real audience (Public Speaking 101), he was fair game.

She was well-spoken in her remarks and respectful, which is more than I can say for the Senator's staffers in their response to her.

For myself, I was used to being loudly protested during the Vietnam War, when I was a college recruiter. I got past the cries of "How many babies did you kill today?" by students who may or may not have been well-intentioned. It is the American Way to promote free discourse, which when we have an issue like Iraq or Vietnam, will get fractious.

Cheers

[clarice]

A graduation speech is not a debate..And that is one reason why this behavior is so offensive.
I've got a second idea (besides the rotten tomato thingy), Make it a requirement that when parents and prospective students tour the grounds , they play the last year's graduation ceremonies.

[cathyf]

One of the quainter traditions of my alma mater is that graduation speakers always come from inside the university. And word was that the speech was limited to 12 minutes, and that the microphone would be turned off at 15. (No one had ever tested that by going on longer though.) It made for a nice hour-or-so-long graduation, with enough time for each graduate to march through and shake the president's hand and receive a folder which had his/her diploma in it. What was the speech about when I graduated? Beats me! But it was very cool that the graduation is about the graduates and they don't have to share the limelight with some outsider brought in because obviously the institution doesn't think that the achievements of its students are important and interesting enough to support a whole ceremony about them.

cathy :-)

[clarice]

Akthough his speech was inoffensive, my remarks go to him, too.

And speaking I think for the majority of parents who paid for these expensive graduations, bad behavior and hijacking the event is not excused by the over used lefty "high moral ground" nonsense.

What we are seeing is that the left is growing ever more desperate for chances to grab the public ear and is now barricaded inside the pressrooms and academic groves.

[Barney Frank]

"And it was precisely because we listen to the views of others, and because, as I said in my speech, we don't fear them, that we as a school were able to mount such a thorough and intelligent opposition to his presence. Ignorant, closed-minded people would not have been able to do what we did."

What kind of a narcissistic pinhead could write something this insipid?

Apparently knowledgable open-minded people oppose the very presence of anyone they disagree with. I guess that means close-minded ignoramuses are the only ones actually interested in debating ideas.

Hope her parents got a rebate on her tuition.

[Ugh]

clarice -

So, John McCain shows up and gives a political speech at my graduation (or, for that matter, John Kerry does), under your rules do I (a) sit down and shut-up; or (b) complain then and there?

[clarice]

Grab a tomato on your way in.

Of course, alumni, parents and grads can use this year's travesties as an example when writing letters to universities reminding them that they are sick of this crap and asking then to please let them know who'll be speaking at next year's fete when they send the plea for contributions.

[OLDPUPPYMAX]

There is no performance by a left-winger so childish, hateful, assinine, ludicrous, pathetic, obscene, laughable or tasteless that it can't be justified by a good old fashioned dose of moral relativism. A century from now, the left will be remembered for bestowing two art forms on mankind--this and immersing various artifacts in urine.

[SteveMG]

under your rules do I (a) sit down and shut-up; or (b) complain then and there?

How about (c), act like an adult and listen to someone whose views you don't like?

Imagine that? Someone at a university giving views that folks don't agree with.

Shocking.

What is the rule here? That unless a speaker says everything I completely agree with, I can shout him down or interrupt his or her speech?

And this standard applies to those who tried to shout down the Democratic Missouri representative whose speech was highly critical of the war and of the Bush Administration.

SMG

[Ugh]

SMG -

How does your (c) differ from my (a)?

[Patton]

I don't care what the speaker is saying...they were invited to provide a message to the attendees. If you don't like what they say, then DON'T CLAP, or DON'T SHOW UP, or write the student newspaper, or the local paper, or call a radio talk show, or hold signs at the campus entrance, or cut out your own tongue in your dorm room, I don't care...but if you interupt the ceremony/speaker, YOU DO NOT GRADUATE, YOU PAY A HEFTY FINE,
AND YOU HAVE TO TAKE 30 HOURS OF MANNERS AND EDICATE TRAINING.

I don't remember all these left wingers protesting, hollering and giving crazy speeches when Clinton was killing far more people in Iraq. And innocent people who had done nothing to us.

[Patton]

This was the idiots point:
"""I am young, and although I don't profess to possess the wisdom that time affords us, I do know that pre-emptive war is dangerous and wrong," she said.""

So defeating Hitler in 1937/38 would have been wrong?

MCCAIN SHOULD HAVE SAID: ASK ALL THOSE JEWS MS. ROHE, IF THEY BELIEVE IT WOULD HAVE BEEN WRONG AS YOU JUST SAID, TO PREVENT THE HOLOCAUST.

Clinton bombing of Yugoslavia, WRONG and not even approved by Congress.

MCCAIN SHOULD HAVE SAID: DID YOU LEFTIST INGRATES MARCH IN THE STREETS THEN? WOULD YOU HAVE PREFERRED A MILLION DEAD KOSOVARS, MS ROHE??

Destroying Bin Laden and his group when he declared war on us in 1998 would have been wrong??

MCCAIN SHOULD HAVE SAID: SO MS, ROHE, YOU SEEM TO BE A LONE VOTE FOR LETTING SEPT 11TH OCCUR...WHY DID YOU WISH SUCH DEATHS ON YOUR FELLOW NEW YORKERS?
HAVE YOU BEEN TO THE FIREHOUSES, THE HOMES OF THE DEAD TO TELL THEM IT WOULD HAVE BEEN WRONG TO SAVE THEIR LOVED ONES LIVES MS. ROHE?

You are right about a couple things Ms. Rohe, you are young, and you don't possess any wisdom, and apparently this school has taught you nothing about history, experience, foriegn policy or even the founding of the nation.

We had a 10 year long war against the Iraqi people Ms Rohe, where were your protests them, as we filled mass graves with ionnocent, starved, women and children..where was your outrage Ms. Rohe, where was your conscience?

I'll tell you, it was a fake then as it is now. Grow up and get a life and be glad we have fought so many pre-emptive wars that allow you to be a complete and utter a--hole!

[Ugh]

I love it when Patton agrees with Chomsky, its so cute.

[SteveMG]

How does your (c) differ from my (a)?

Mine (c) includes listening.

After all, it's a university.

Isn't hearing speakers like reading books? Who reads only those books that reinforces one's pre-existing views?

SMG

[Barney Frank]

I'm with clarice on this one.

The commencement address, whether by Kerry, McCain or Mortimer Schnerd should be about the little dweebs graduating not a bunch of political mush. And the little dweebs should fill their's with all the inane platitudes we have come to expect on these occasions. Far preferable to some sophomoric political cant when people are already irritated sitting for hours on hardwood.
Tomatoes for the lot of them.

[Ugh]

SMG - I'm actually with you on (c), though any protest that doesn't disrupt the speaker (e.g., signs, turning your back, etc.) would be fine by me. I was just wondering what to do if the rules, as I understand them as laid down by clarice, are (a) no political graduation speeches; and (b) no heckling of graduation speakers, what to do when the speaker breaks the first rule. She suggests tomatoes but that's hardly better than heckling.

[Lesley]

Quotes from Jean Rohe (speaker before McCain at New School)

""Later, John McCain arrived in the green room, and with the encouragement of Laurie Anderson, another honoree, Christina and I introduced ourselves to him. I almost wanted to warn the guy that I was about to make him look like an idiot so that he would at least have a fighting chance and an extra moment to change his speech to save himself. But he didn't even make eye contact when we shook hands, so I figured I didn't owe him anything.""

""And just before the end of the ceremony Bob Kerrey asked if I wanted to walk out with McCain. I said that would be OK. Kerrey led me over to him as the recessional music began, and I took McCain's arm. "I'm sorry, man," I told him, "I just had to do it." He mumbled something about it being alright, but I think he probably would've rather not had me there. It really wasn't his fault that he got invited into a pit of very well-educated vipers, and it really wasn't my fault that I did what I had to do in the situation.""

[vnjagvet]

Manners, manners, manners. That is all that is at stake here.

A commencement in today's USA is simply not Tianamin Square in China, and equating these times in the USA to the situation in which the Chinese students found themselves there is the height of moral relativism making morality meaningless.

These students simply have a distorted view of their own self-importance IMNSHO.

[maryrose]

" I am sorry man" Where is the sign of respect for an elder . She should have said Mr. McCain or Senator. She diminishes herself by giving in to crassness and lack of etiquette. A disappointing performance. And then there's Kerrey-hoping for a Kumbaya moment.

[Patton]

"""It really wasn't his fault that he got invited into a pit of very well-educated vipers, """

I have yet to have a single well-educated viper explain to me why it was better to have their policy: KILLING INNOCENT IRAQIS THROUGH SANCTIONS CAUSING STARVATION, DISEASE AND GETTING IN BED WITH SADDAM HIS TORTURING THUGS.

was preferably to Bush's policy of: KILL GUILTY IRAQIS WHO HAD TORTURED, STARVED AND MURDER HUNDREDS OF THOUSANDS OF PEOPLE AND WHO DAILY PROCLAIM THEY WANT TO KILL AS MANY JEWS AND AMERICANS AS POSSIBLE.

The last well educated Viper was the guy who proclaimed we didn't need to worry about Middle Eastern terrorists...a month before Sept 11th. Of course the same well-educated left wing Lamestream media flock to that idiot for policy positions.

[Sue]

Everyone take a moment and celebrate with me. I finally bought a new computer. Yeah! I have a 19" flat panel screen. I am a happy person. I still have dial-up. Can't help that. They won't provide broadband in my area. ::frown:: But, happy dance...the dinosaur is gone....

[Patton]

Sue,
How dare you be happy when people are dying in Africa.

Bono

'Sent from my BlackBerry Wireless'

[Sue]

Sorry. ::grin:: I am a baaad person...

[Dave in W-S]

"The jeers, boos and insults flew, as caustic as any that angry New Yorkers have hurled inside Madison Square Garden."

[skip]

"No sooner had Mr. Kerrey welcomed the audience to the university's 70th commencement than the hoots began to rise..."

[skip]

"Several graduates held up a banner aimed at Mr. McCain, an Arizona Republican and likely 2008 presidential candidate, declaring: "Our commencement is not your platform." Other students and faculty members waved orange fliers with the same message."

[skip]

"The senator does not reflect the ideals upon which this university was founded," she [Rohe] said, to a roaring ovation. "This invitation was a top-down decision that did not take into account the desires and interests of the student body on an occasion that is supposed to honor us above all."

Excerpt from Sen McCain's speech:

"Ours is a noisy, contentious society, and always has been, for we love our liberties much. And among those liberties we love most, particularly so when we are young, is our right to self-expression. That passion for self-expression sometimes overwhelms our civility, and our presumption that those with whom we have strong disagreements, wrong as they might be, believe that they, too, are answering the demands of their conscience."

[skip]

"We have our disagreements, we Americans. We contend regularly and enthusiastically over many questions: over the size and purposes of our government; over the social responsibilities we accept in accord with the dictates of our conscience and our faithfulness to the God we pray to; over our role in the world and how to defend our security interests and values in places where they are threatened. These are important questions; worth arguing about. We should contend over them with one another. It is more than appropriate, it is necessary that even in times of crisis, especially in times of crisis, we fight among ourselves for the things we believe in. It is not just our right, but our civic and moral obligation.

Our country doesn’t depend on the heroism of every citizen. But all of us should be worthy of the sacrifices made on our behalf. We have to love our freedom, not just for the private opportunities it provides, but for the goodness it makes possible. We have to love it as much, even if not as heroically, as the brave Americans who defend us at the risk and often the cost of their lives. We must love it enough to argue about it, and to serve it, in whatever way our abilities permit and our conscience requires, whether it calls us to arms or to altruism or to politics."

Despite Rohe's contention that the purpose of commencement is to honor the graduates above all, I have always thought that the purpose of commencement was to mark the beginning of adult life; the purpose of a commencement address to challenge the graduates to better things and to open their eyes to what they could yet accomplish.

To that end, I think Sen. McCain's words were well chosen to challenge these graduates to help bring civility to American public discourse. Obviously, he picked the wrong crowd, judging by Rohe and her compatriots, at least. They are demonstrably not up to the challenge. Perhaps some of their classmates are. One can but hope.

[clarice]

I grant that with age I have become even more curmudgeonly, but I do wish that the young would be congratulated less often for self-expression as they so rarely express anything worth saying let alone listening to.It's like a closed loop of Leno doing his street quizes with an awful lot of extra "you knows" and "like" thrown in .

[vnjagvet]

I'll have you know, Clarice, that we have earned the right to be curmudgeonly. And each year that goes by we get a stripe which entitles us to be more penetrating in our curmudgeonliness.

[Dave in W-S]

"I grant that with age I have become even more curmudgeonly..."

Certainly you are not speaking of that softspoken, self-effacing person we all know and love, are you Clarice?

[Clyde]

It should also be noted that the literal translation of "Taliban" is "student."

Just sayin'...

[clarice]

Dave...............

[FedUp]

Here's my experience at the University of Miami Law School Graduation on Mother's Day of this year. (My son was a graduate!)

Anne-Marie Slaughter, author of A New World Order, was the commencement speaker. After 18 min. she began a litany of reasons why the USA was so disliked in the world. She made some typical liberal remarks about the Iraq War and albout 20% of the audience clapped. The other 80% sat quietly. She droned on for another 20 min. (I kid you not) and at the end about 20% of the audience and Graduates clapped and stood. The rest of us sat quietly, obviously not happy with her speech. At no time was she heckled, jeered, screamed at, etc. but she knew she had over-stepped her bounds because of the sparse applause.

I was furious. I felt her talk should have been about the Graduates, and yes, I would have been angry at anyone who espoused his/her own political viewsd at the graduation.

So one can disagree with the Commencement Speaker and still be polite. As I said, it was obvious to everyone that her speech was not appreciated by 80% of the people there.

[Dave in W-S]

Clarice, I have always felt about the same as I did when I was several decades younger. But then this morning, when I stopped in at Bojangles for a biscuit, the cashier rang up a "Senior drink" without even asking.

[clarice]

Bummer....I still hope someone..anyone will card me.

[richard mcenroe]

As I rec'clect, the New School was originally (mebbe still is) fully called The New School for Social Research.

Guess the research turned out negative.

[Tom Maguire]

He mumbled something about it being alright...

For the record, what McCain mumbled was "I endured five years in the Hanoi Hilton, I can endure five minutes listening to you. But another fifteen seconds and you are over the limit."

[clarice]

Congratulations, fed up! Next time take tomatoes.

[Daddy]

I was fortunate in having 2 CO's who were former POW's. One was mediocre, and the other was probably the finest man I ever met. I was also fortunate in later becomming good friends with a third 5+ year Hanoi POW. To stand with him, in the alleys of Lan Kwai Fong in Hong Kong, with a pint of Guiness in one's hand during some Friday evening when Asia's finest 3 block expat outdoor block party was going on, was an experience not to be missed. Freely admitting he was making up for lost time, his eyes and big smile would light up in delight like a kid on Christmas morning as the gorgeous girls of all the world would wander up and down those old cobbled alleys as if on parade. On one such night I vividly recall him, between ogles, railing like a demon against not the courage or toughness, but against the crappy political decisions of one Senator John McCain. A very enjoyable evening.
I also respect Bob Kerrey's military record, but in equating students rudely booing at some crappy college graduation with the courage of dead Chinese Democracy protestors, I believe the misguided former senator is mistakenly conflating Tiananmen Square with Tiananmen Square-Dancing.

[Scape-Goat Trainee]

If my kid EVER turned his back on a veteran such as John McCain, as well as what McCain had to endure, I'd never live let him live it down. These weren't "brave students", they were punks, nothing more. The teachers were even worse. Only one person that I know of in the building deserved as much respect as John McCain when it comes to the service he did this country and that was Bob Kerry himself.