Author booed for anti-Bush remarks

[JMT]

BY BART JONES
STAFF WRITER

May 24, 2004


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, showing no emotion as he stood silently and listened to the jeers. Hofstra President Stuart Rabinowitz intervened, and called on the audience to allow him to finish. He did, although some booing persisted.

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..."

Those lines provoked an outburst of boos so loud the "Ragtime" author stopped the speech. Rabinowitz approached the podium and called for calm. "We value open discussion and debate," he said. "For the sake of your graduates, please let him finish."

Many parents and relatives of the more than 1,300 undergraduates were livid over the address, saying afterward that a college graduation was not the place for a political speech.

Bill Schmidt, 51, of North Bellmore, shared the outrage. "To ruin my daughter's graduation with politics is pathetic," the retired New York Police Department captain said. "I think the president is doing the best he can" in the war against terrorism.

Many students also called Doctorow's speech inappropriate. But some defended Doctorow's speech. "I think he's entitled to his opinion and he's as American as anyone else," said a Hempstead resident who identified himself only as Frank and whose daughter was graduating.

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." The university did not know the content of the address. It is not Hofstra's policy to screen commencement speeches, officials said.

Berliner said it was relatively common during the Vietnam War, but "extraordinarily uncommon" in recent times for a speaker to have to stop speaking.

Still, it has happened recently. Last year, New York Times reporter Chris Hedges was booed off the stage when he tried to deliver an antiwar speech at Rockford College in Illinois.

(matt drudge)

[V. Barbarino]

i'd be pissed off too. no place for this kinda of crap at a graduation ceremony...

if it was mine, I'd walk out.

[saintjohn]

graduation is usually quite an achievement, so a commencement address should carry a positive message. why didn't doctorow use the opportunity to bring attention to people or things that he supports? he could've eloquently congratulated the assembled graduates, urged to save the world, and then given them guidance as to how to proceed; instead, he chose to call the president a storyteller.

[Tim]

I agree. There's a time and a place for this kind of political commentary. It's not at a graduation, and it's not at the Oscar's. Show some tact. They should have let the booing continue if we're talking freedom of speech here...

[web_norah]

Originally Posted by Tim

I agree. There's a time and a place for this kind of political commentary. It's not at a graduation, and it's not at the Oscar's. Show some tact. They should have let the booing continue if we're talking freedom of speech here...

thats a very valid point
freedom of speech is a relative loose term here

[saintjohn]

at least doctorow's address wasn't boring:

http://www.boston.com/news/local/art...resses_values/

Originally Posted by saintjohn

graduation is usually quite an achievement, so a commencement address should carry a positive message. why didn't doctorow use the opportunity to bring attention to people or things that he supports? he could've eloquently congratulated the assembled graduates, urged to save the world, and then given them guidance as to how to proceed; instead, he chose to call the president a storyteller.

Definitely should have been a positive & motivational message...While I think Bush is full of sh*t...I totally agree this wasn't the right time or place.

[shannon_coolj.]

I agree - no place for political remarks

I like Dave Barry's Commencement address better:

Good news! You can go home again

DAVE BARRY


A Commencement Address to the College Class of 2004:

This is your big day -- the day when you jam four years' worth of unlaundered underwear into a Hefty bag and leave college, prepared by your professors to go out into the Real World. The first thing you'll notice is that your professors did not go out there with you. They're not stupid; that's why they're professors. They've figured out that college is a carefree place where the most serious real problem is finding a legal parking space. So your professors are going to stay in college until they die. Even then, they'll go right on teaching classes. This is called ''tenure.''

But you, the members of the Class of 2004, have committed the grave tactical blunder of acquiring enough credits to graduate. So now you're leaving college and embarking upon the greatest adventure -- and the biggest challenge -- of your young lives: moving back in with your parents. Decades ago, when I graduated from college, my friends and I would rather have undergone a vasectomy with a fondue fork than move back in with our parents. But times have changed, and today many graduates don't want to go straight from college into a harsh and unforgiving world fraught with unbearable hardships, such as no free high-speed Internet. And so many of you will return home, hand your Hefty bag to Mom for processing, and move back into your old room, which is filled with your childhood memories, not to mention the faint aroma of gerbil doots.

Is this a bad thing? Does the fact that you, a grown adult, are moving back in with your parents mean that you're a sponging loser?

Yes. You are SpongeBob LoserPants.

No! Sorry! I mean: No. It's fine! Your parents don't mind! They're thrilled to have you back home! Even from way up here on the podium, I can hear their teeth grinding with joy.

Besides, it's only temporary, right? In time you'll get tired of living with your parents, with their constant nagging about how you need to find a job, or at least help with the housework, and could you put gas in Dad's car when you borrow it, and can you explain the Mystery Thong that Dad found in the backseat cup holder, and MY GOD IS THAT A TATTOO, and could you not play that music so loud at night, or could you at least play some DECENT music, we're not ''squares'' you know, we like GOOD rock 'n' roll, we like The Mamas and The Papas, the Beatles -- though not the later Beatles -- but this music today, you can't even call it music, it sounds like angry men clubbing a yak to death with electric guitars, and HOW COULD YOU GET A TATTOO THERE, and there are 15 Starbucks -- no wait, now it's 16 Starbucks -- within walking distance of this house and surely one of them would be happy to hire somebody with a degree in anthropology, and here's an article I found in Women's Day about tattoo removal that you might want to . . . DON'T YOU WALK AWAY WHEN I'M TALKING TO YOU . . .

Yes, graduates, as much as you love your Mom and Dad, you're realistic enough to understand, deep down inside, that they are the two most annoying human beings on the planet. And so the time will come -- I give it six weeks -- when you realize that you can no longer continue living with them. And so you will summon your courage, take a deep breath, and ask them to move out. It's only fair! They've had the house practically to themselves for years! Now it's your turn! Let THEM go work at Starbucks.

Of course, eventually, you, the Class of 2004, will want to have a career. You may think you'll never find your ''dream job,'' but trust me: If you set your goals high, and you never, ever give up, I guarantee you that one day, you will find yourself working for a huge impersonal corporation run by morons. Everybody does! It's not so bad: You get a little cubicle where you sit all day doing some tedious corporate thing that has absolutely nothing to do with anything you learned in college. For diversion you'll speculate with your fellow cubicle dwellers on how your corporation manages to survive under a management team with the combined IQ of a kielbasa. On your break, you'll go buy a mocha latte from Dad. You'll settle into a comfortable routine, and before you know it, you'll have kids of your own. And one day, you'll send them off to college.

When that happens, Class of 2004, change the locks.

[Apotheosis]

I love Dave Barry! ;D