May 18, 2004

I Never Saw Another Cicada

I’m back from three days in Washington, spent with ten relatives, yet somehow with no cicadas. My sister’s departmental graduation was held in GW’s basketball arena (site of Yinka Dare’s college games) and featured Steve Roberts as speaker; the full university commencement was held on The Ellipse across from the White House- when I needed a men's room, I thought about knocking on the Oval Office door and asking to use theirs- and featured four non-descript “mini-speakers,” the only one of note being former Joint Chiefs chairman John Shalikashvili.

As for the latter ceremony, the following was written yesterday morning on National Review’s The Corner:

A good source tells me: "As students began to leave their seats at the end of George Washington University's graduation ceremony Sunday, school president Stephen Joel Trachtenberg said, 'And you may now turn your tassels from right to left, as I hope happened to your politics in the last four years.'"

I was there, it’s true. Strange that he would admit that, usually such things are said in code, i.e. “we uphold our strong commitment to social justice,” which is another way of saying “Bush is going down.” Though it should be noted that, in the ranks of loathsome and gutless American college presidents, Trachtenberg is generally considered to be one of the good ones. His seeming weakness for political indoctrination notwithstanding.

Posted by Stephen Silver at May 18, 2004 09:41 AM
Comments

At least he didn't make a speech in which he said tolerance was bad, like the one-armed Fuehrer of my alma mater did.

Posted by: Jeremy Wahlman at May 18, 2004 01:59 PM

At least he didn't invoke the whole "social justice" thingy (bleh, after 4 years I'm sick of it).

How soon do you think David Horowitz will jump on that line of Trachtenberg's and make a big deal out of it?

Posted by: jaws at May 19, 2004 11:12 AM
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