Let’s see if you can wrap your head around this one — according to this blogger, when graduating students at The New School heckled Senator McCain, the students were rude. But when graduating students at the University of Missouri — St. Louis booed and heckled Representative William “Lacy” Clay (D-MO), it was the congressman’s fault.
He nearly incited a riot! Those UMSL students were a “captive audience” to a speaker who said things they disagreed with, for pete’s sake. What else were they supposed to do?
Oddly, I couldn’t find anything about the near riot from the St. Louis Post-Dispatch, which suggests it was a very minor near riot. The UMSL web site confirmed that Rep. Clay was a speaker at the commencement for the “College of Nursing, UMSL/WU Joint Undergraduate Engineering Program, College of Fine Arts and Communication, School of Social Work, UM-Rolla/Engineering Education Center, Gerontology Program (master’s program) and Public Policy Administration Program (master’s program).”
What do you want to bet the hecklers were engineers? They are a sensitive bunch.
I haven’t found the text of the congressman’s remarks, but according to one of the graduates it must have been hell:
He spent a good five minutes talking about how President Bush lied, there were no weapons of mass destruction, we need to bring our troops home, etc. (the typical rhetoric of the left). He even gave the number of U.S. casualties to date. During this tirade many people began to boo and yell. At one point the jeers were so bad that Mr. Clay said “Now wait a minute, I have the microphone so you need to listen”
The grads had to sit through five whole minutes of actual truth about the President and the war, and understandably they were so upset that the congressman “needed security to escort him from the building.” Poor babies.
(Did Senator McCain need security to leave Madison Square Garden last weekend? Well, actually, he would have had security no matter what. Senator Chuck Schumer spoke at my son’s graduation from Purchase College, or the college formerly known as SUNY-Purchase, last Friday — he didn’t say anything interesting — and there was security up the wazoo even though the audience liked Senator Chuck just fine.)
Now, some of you might think the blogger is being a tad inconsistent. But no, it’s about respect, he says. Some grads from the New School had turned their backs on Senator McCain even before he began speaking, but the grads at UMSL were justified in heckling and throwing a near riot because Rep. Clay attacked the president of the United States (Yes! And for five whole minutes!) and then reprimanded the audience after they started booing him.
“I don’t expect you to understand this,” the blogger says. Actually, I believe I understand it just fine.
Naturally this guy found the protesting of Condi Rice at Boston College extremely distasteful, even though it was mostly silent. The protests “spoiled” the graduation.
It’s a good thing my boy didn’t go to BC; I don’t think I could have endured a speech by Condi without throwing up. That would have spoiled the graduation, I think.
Oh, and someone should explain to the blogger that the most likely reason the AP’s account of the speech and the actual speech were slightly different is that the AP was working from a press release of the speech provided by the Department of State prior to the graduation, and Ms. Rice evidently decided to leave out the part about the use of force in Iraq being “the right thing” at the last minute. Maybe she didn’t want to incite a near riot. That was respectful of her.
Glenn Greenwald, who clearly does not understand respect, blogged yesterday:
So pro-Bush students heckled Rep. Clay’s speech and were so disruptive that the Congressman actually needed security to escort him out of the building for fear that his physical safety would be endangered. Does that show that the Angry Right is deranged and is jeopardizing their chances to win elections? No, it shows the opposite. This incident also shows how deranged the Angry Left is.
Of course. That’s perfectly clear.
According to Instapundit — who cited the Gateway Pundit post and said that “a Hateful anti-war speech by Rep. Lacy Clay (D-MO) . . . provokes a near riot” — this episode “[s]eems to illustrate the point made in this WSJ editorial about the Democrats’ penchant for self-marginalization and self-destruction.” The WSJ Editorial to which Instapundit cited condemned the heckling and booing by the New School students of McCain’s speech. But to Instapundit, that same Editorial also shows that Democrats are acting stupidly and angrily when they give commencement speeches and are heckled by Republican students to the point where they need security to be escorted out.
Of course. Democrats are supposed to smile and say “yowzah!” at whatever Republicans do, because to disagree with Republicans is bad as well as politically risky. No one is going to want to vote for Democrats who badmouth Republicans. Even other Democrats will run screaming from a Democrat who badmouths Republicans, apparently. I’m not sure why this would be true given recent polling on the popularity of Republicans, but it must be true. The only Dems who can expect to win elections are docile and respectful Dems. But it’s OK if Republicans insult Democrats because, you know, Democrats deserve it.
Gateway Pundit also points out how hateful Jack Murtha is, because he, too, has been giving anti-war speeches — including at Commencement ceremonies — where he forces Republican students in the audience to heckle, walk out and act disruptively. How come Rich Lowry wasn’t decrying the terribly uncivil conduct towards war hero Jack Murtha? At least according to Instapundit’s rationale, it’s because it is the anti-war speeches themselves that are hateful — not the student’s understandable reaction — and so the speech and the speaker are to blame for provoking the disruptive behavior of those patriotic pro-war students.
So, to re-cap the rules: (1) When a pro-war politician gives a pro-war speech as part of a graduation ceremony, and students in the audience heckle and boo him, that shows how Deranged the Angry Left is — because they heckled a pro-war speech. (2) When an anti-war politician gives an anti-war speech as part of a graduation ceremony, and students in the audience heckle, walk out and even riot, that also shows how Angry the Left is — because they “provoked a near riot” by pro-war students.
Glenn says the Wall Street Journal was upset about the heckling of McCain because the students were “sneering at our war heroes.” But he recalls that in the past Republicans have been a tad less than respectful to Democratic war heroes –e.g., Murtha, John Kerry, Max Cleland. “Sneering at war heroes was one of the principal tactics of the Bush re-election campaign and has been a reliable tool to attack and smear any war hero who speaks out against this administration,” Glenn says. For that matter, McCain himself got the smear treatment in 2000 when he was running against George W. Bush for the Republican nomination. He used to be crazy, remember? I guess he got better.
But I think I see the difference. If you express disagreement with a war hero to his face, you are being disrespectful. But if you smear him behind his back, it’s perfectly OK! Clearly, righties understand principal and ethics so much better than we lefties do.
It’s good that in this commencement season, that clearcut examples of the rights’ hypocrisy and dishonesty are surfacing and can be rubbed in their child-like faces.
Like you, I wouldn’t be surprised if many of the hecklers at the Clay incident were engineering graduates (and I say this as a software engineer with a four year degree and decades of experience in said field). I’ve known too many know-it-all engineers, with zero people skills who ended up on the right. My experiences with their limited yet arrogant thinking got so bad, that I even started studying books about Critical Thinking (something I recommend for anyone).
We need to hammer home the right’s penchant for hypocrisy and intellectual dishonesty, and these commencement disruptions are perfect examples. To not say anything is to be complicit in obscuring the truth of the matter.
I should have disclosed that I am a University of Missouri grad, although I matriculated at the Columbia and not the St. Louis campus. And it was, like, two centuries ago. But the engineering students had, um, a rep back then. And the Rolla campus, which was nearly all engineers in my day, was hard core. Back in the day Rolla students were nearly all nerdy conservative guys with slide rules in their back pockets. Now Rolla students are mostly technoweenies, I understand.
alyosha:>“I’ve known too many know-it-all engineers, with zero people skills who ended up on the right.”
Also noticed that the best engineers aren’t that way at all?
In general, the smartest people in any field are more liberal. Hate to say it, but “know-it-all” s aren’t very smart, hence the chip on the shoulder.
The few really smart people I know who are conservative aren’t pro-Bush at all.
Also noticed that the best engineers aren’t that way at all?
I’m glad you mentioned this. I had a conversation the other day with a friend who happened to speak to a group of engineers at Jet Propulsion Lab in Pasadena. She was floored that her audience were a fascinating bunch of people, so unlike her preconceptions of what “engineers” were like. I found myself explaining to her that, alas, the folks at JPL are the cream of the crop, and unfortunately are not representative of the field. Working at a place like JPL is a dream job, and they can afford to pick only the best.
It’s really quite simple. Anything a liberal says is by definition rude, violent hate speech etc. Anything a right-winger says is the epitome of civilized discourse. It’s not what is said, it’s who says it.
By the way, Blogads is blocking part of the text of your posts. At least I see it happening on Firefox, don’t know if other people are having problems.
At least I see it happening on Firefox, don’t know if other people are having problems.
I’m having the same problem,NMMNG..I had to switch to Explorer to read the post..My computer went haywire and I was knocked offline for most of the past 2 days. I assume that Verizon was rummaging through my computer looking for information that it could relay to the NSA.
I had heard(and read) that in the case of The New School that many students did not want Mccain to speak on THEIR day and they held talks with the school trying to stop it.I can understand why students were angry that their day was kinda hijacked and their wishes for who spoke on a day that they earned were not honored.
Have the righties forgotten the way bush co treated Mccain in 2000? He got both the nutz and slutz treatment,, and then some. They floated the idea that Senator Mccain was somehow mental unbalanced because of his time as a POW..they accused him of having an affair and producing a black love child .. they changed polling places, ect….Bush co did that man dirty and now righties have the nerve to point fingers of shame after a student stood up in a free country and spoke her mind about Mccains stump speech?
And why the sudden love for Mccain from the right? Polls have shown righties don’t really like him so it seems funny that now they rush to defend him against some college kids…(but then they do love a chance to prey on the weak and powerless)….
We should load the 101st keyboarders up with the fake army ranger and send them to iraq to find all that good news…while they are gone we will replace them with immigrants.
Actually, it’s just another example of IOKIYAR. Whatever is done, IOKIYAR. Per Republicans.
I shifted the blogads to the right-hand column until I get a response from somebody at blogads. For some reason the adstrip is too wide, but I don’t know how to fix it.
I was once married to an engineer. A definite left-sider, whose relatives had all been communists in their day. Now days, some might call them idealists.
If a lot of engineers are Republican, it’s probably because so many of them don’t want to deal with anything that is not engineering related. Including other people.
grrrrrr …. your new Mail required field just blew away an entire post of mine … Bad web application! Thou shalt not lose user input upon validation error! 3rd law of web site design!
Anywho … as you know I went to UMR, so I can say UMR kids were obviously not the ones up to bad behavior.
Rah rah school spirit and all that crap.
While I was there, to the extent politics were EVER discussed, most people who actually had an opinion seemed to be Libertarian. I wish I knew then what I know now about politics, could have had some real good knock down drag out arguments…
BTW, you know my Uncle, your brother’s wife’s sister’s husband? He went to UMR back in the day, same time period as all the rest of you Old People, and from his stories of what he and his friends used to get up to, always sounded to me like the campus back then was anything BUT hardcore consevative … maybe he was just a rebel?
-me
grrrrrr …. your new Mail required field just blew away an entire post of mine … Bad web application! Thou shalt not lose user input upon validation error! 3rd law of web site design!
Sorry, but I’m really gettng slammed with comment spam. Like, thousands of spams every day that had to be deleted. I put in a plug-in spam protector and tightened the filters a little, but more spam got through the filters last night. I may have to add one of those thingies where you type in the scrambled letters you read in a box. I don’t want to put everyone on comment moderation.
BTW, you know my Uncle, your brother’s wife’s sister’s husband?
Your Uncle Ron is a lot older than I am. Like, decades. Centuries, maybe.