Posted on 05/23/2004 5:05:46 PM PDT by 11th Earl of Mar
BY BART JONES STAFF WRITER
May 23, 2004, 7:17 PM EDT
E.L. Doctorow, one of the most celebrated writers in America, was nearly booed off the stage at Hofstra University Sunday when he gave a commencement address lambasting President George W. Bush and effectively calling him a liar.
Booing that came mainly from the crowd in the stands became so intense that Doctorow stopped speaking at one point...
Doctorow, who spent virtually all of his 20-minute address in Hempstead criticizing Bush, told the crowd that like himself the president is a storyteller. But "sadly they are not good stories this president tells," he said. "They are not good stories because they are not true." That line provoked the first boos, along with scattered cheers.
...Those lines provoked an outburst of boos so loud the "Ragtime" author stopped the speech... He attacked Bush for giving the rich tax breaks, doing "a very poor job of combating terrorism" and allowing the government to subpoena libraries "to see what books you've been taking out."
Many parents and relatives were livid over the address... Bill Schmidt, 51, of North Bellmore, shared the outrage. "To ruin my daughter's graduation with politics is pathetic" ...
One Hofstra official said Sunday that while Doctorow had the right to say what he did, he violated the unwritten code that college commencement speeches should inspire and unite a student body. Provost Dr. Herman Berliner said he has been to numerous graduation ceremonies during the past 30 years and "I cannot remember a commencement speech that was as divisive as this commencement speech was."
...
(Excerpt) Read more at newsday.com ...
Sir. Have you no decency?
I guess he should be glad no loose fruit was nearby.
My book collection will now be purged of any of this Socialist's screeds.
When will the hippies finally die already?
I would have marched up into the middle of the grads, found my child and walked out via the center aisle. That would have been the kind of role model I'd have been. Show my kids that we don't have to sit and tolerate what others think we need to hear if we know it to be a lie.
I guess I'm out of touch. What has he written and why haven't I heard of it?
Can't be soon enough for me...
Wow - the Hofstra audience booed? That's the second case this week of commie speakers getting raspberried while on a rant. Perhaps the opinion polls aren't so accurate...
Really, I've never heard of him. Course, I probably have no literary redemption. I tend to read Clancy, King, Koontz, Rush and Hannity books. And of course the late, great BKO.
Yeah, I know.
"One of the most celebrated authors?"
Makes me wonder who is doing the celebrating and why haven't the rest of us even heard there was a party.
Compare and contrast with Bush's classy and witty remarks at the LSU commencement.
E.L. Doctorow? Whew! God bless anybody who can stay awake reading that guy's bloated garbage. What a bore! And apparently Doctorow is a "boor" as well.
When I graduated from College our commencement speaker was Mort Crim, newsman from Detroit. He was classy as well. I would have been quite hacked had my tuition money have gone to pay for this much trash.
Apparently he wrote the forward to "Amerika" by Franz Kafka.
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