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 ...
quote to him your namesake's tirade against Cataline, and draw the parallel for him if he cannot scope it himself. You'd be doing him a solid.
LOL! Great picture! :-)
"Rule #1 in public speaking... Know your audience."
Winston also said, "A fanatic is one who won't change his mind, and won't change the subject." (A typical leftist graduation speaker.)
When I was at Disney last wwek, I prepared myself for the booes I assumed would come when W soke during the Hall of Presidents show...I even warned my kids it might happen and to be ready to outcheer them. Imagine my shock when, not only were there no booes, there was solid applause.
I am just as guilty as anyone of getting thrown off course by the media.
Was he as shocked by Nixon's election as the rest of his contemporaries? I didn't care for his writing either but different strokes and all...
Cynthia J. Bogard
Title: Associate Professor
Office: 0202G Davison Hall
E-mail: Cynthia.J.Bogard@Hofstra.edu
Voice: (516) 463-5643
FAX: (516) 463-6250
Web Page: http://people.hofstra.edu/faculty/Cynthia_J_Bogard
I'll be writing her in the morning.
Good heavens. For most of my adult life the one venue in which a sanctimonious, self-righteous, accusatory liberal could guarantee a sympathetic hearing was on campus. If they've lost that, they've lost one of their last bastions in the culture wars, and I guarantee you, they never saw it coming. Expect great howlings of "McCarthyism! First amendment!" from those who made a practice of shouting conservative speakers from the stage. Many of these will emanate from the nightly news pulpits and the editorial pages, the real last bastions of a failed political philosophy.
What the leftist feminist hack Professor is saying is this:
That the parents could be better role models by lapping up the swill the leftist hack writer speaker is giving as his speech.
"That is probably the most sickening thing I have read in a long, long time. The majority of students didn't sit quietly and accept the hate and lies spouted at their commencement, and this leftist says their reaction is because of a lack of good parents."
Yeah, but that is because this leftist professor actually agrees with the swill of the leftist writer.
What a great sign! LOL!
But what about the media???
The devil made me do it.
Just when I want to throw in the towel and think the left has over taken the mainstream common sense agenda, a story like this gives me hope. I LOVE IT AND WILL KEEP PRAYING AND SPREADING THE CONSERVATIVE WORD!
Look it up. It's the favorite trick of the leftists to intimidate conservative speakers out of campus venues in many places. If they can heckle, so can parents.
In the case of commencement addresses, where you have a 'captive audience' of parents, an inappropriately over-political message is worthy of a heckle or two.
I think this is the second time in two weeks this type thing has happened at college commencements!! What on earth is happening ?????
From what I know of Hofstra, it's a commuter-type Long Island school that it not particularly politicized. It's probably most famous for being the place where the Jets train.
He looks like a cross between Henry Waxman and Emperor Hirohito.
When the sitting President of the United States is being crucified by a " commencement speaker" who has NO business politicizing, then yes, BOO .......BOO.........BOO....is in order!!!!!!
Note the split in opinion between the faculty and the parents.
I know. They keep remembering those halcyon days of Vietnam. Its like they keep exhuming Nixon as well.
Uncanny.
Theodore Sorenson - a lib from the
JFK/RFK/EMK years was very angrily
booed/yelled at when he trashed
President Bush during Oswego's(NY)
Commencement.
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