Commencement Speeches

I just finished watching three college graduation commencement speeches on C-Span in their series called "Road to the Whitehouse."

First, I watched Hillary Clinton, who spoke at Adelphi. She was utterly unengaging. She talked about a future where her social agenda is a reality. I agree with her social agenda, but, I think she has failed on the great moral question of our time: Iraq. She has been consistently pro-war. At first I thought she was just on the fence about it, but with the passing of time she has proven me wrong.

Next, I watched George Pataki's speech. It was very good. The only problem that I had with it was when he stated that one of the graduates might become a marine, and that they would be defending our freedom. We have seen the misuse and abuse of our soldiers in this war over the past four years; they have even started sending soldiers with PTSD back to Iraq for another tour of duty.

The third speaker that I watched was Joe Biden. He talked about the burdens that he faced in his youth, and what he learned from it. Senator Biden has quite an engaging personality.

Anyway, I was just scoping out the competition. If you want to hear a really good speech, listen to Feingold's May 5th speech to the National Press Corps at his website. I can't gaurantee it will be there forever, but it is there now.