Wednesday, May 13, 2009

Obama Gives Arizona State University Commencement

Update: See the video here.
Update: Live audio stream here. The speech starts at 7:10
ASU also is live streaming the speech here. Or you can watch it below.
Obama will deliver the commencement speech tonight but still won't get an honorary degree. The Obama Scholars is a pretty good idea but it's only an after thought by the school's president Michael Crow, embarrassed the first time around for refusing Obama an honorary degree for reasons no one is really sure of because the answer given is sorta lame. Read the background on that here. I'll post video when it's up.
Vice President Joe Biden got an honorary degree when he addressed the graduates of Syracuse University.

Even Oprah Winfrey got one at Duke University's commencement.

But President Barack Obama will not get one this evening when he addresses the graduates of Arizona State University. The school, which has honored the likes of Cesar Chavez, 1992, Walter Cronkite, 1989, Art Buchwald, 1988, Mo Udall, 1987, Henry Cisneros, 1986, Erma Bombeck, 1980, George Romney, 1962, and Barry Goldwater, 1961, said Obama had not accrued a "body of work'' sufficient for the honor.

Obama will even draw an honorary degree from the University of Notre Dame this weekend, the Catholic campus where the appearance of the pro-abortion-rights-pro-stem-cell-research president has created a stir and is prompting a protest sit-out Sunday among some of the school's graduating seniors.

Instead, the Arizona university, which was somewhat embarrassed by the original round of publicity surrounding its lack of a degree for the president, is naming its biggest scholarship program for the president -- the Obama scholars. Swamp
You can watch it here at 7:00 pm: