"Service to America is not a matter of coercion. It is a matter of
conscience," he told the 5,500-member class of 2002 at Ohio State
University. "So today I am making an appeal to your conscience, for
the sake of your country."
Hmm, too bad appeals to conscience, rather than coercion by stage agents, didn't apply to citizen's rights to freedom of expression at the OSU commencement.
"America needs more than taxpayers, spectators and occasional
voters. America needs full-time citizens."
As long as they've got their war groove on!
"We are commanded by God and called by our conscience to love others
as we want to be loved ourselves," he told the graduates.
Unless they're not white, then it's bombs away.
No mention was made of protests.
The USA Today story has some interesting bits:
The president also picked up an honorary doctor of public
administration degree during his brief appearance at the ceremonies.
He then headed to Houston to appear at a political event expected to
raise almost $2 million.
Interesting juxtaposition, that.
To Ohio State graduates who obeyed an announcer's warning against
heckling and greeted Bush with hearty cheers, the president recalled
a Tuesday morning last fall that was as brilliantly sunny as the
skies over Ohio Stadium.
...
On the flight from Washington, Bridgeland told reporters that Bush
drew his speech, his second and last commencement address of this
season, from writings and teachings of Alexis de Tocqueville, Adam
Smith, George Eliot, Emily Dickinson, William Wordsworth, Pope John
Paul II, Benjamin Rush, Thomas Jefferson, Abraham Lincoln, George
Washington, Cicero and, finally, Aristotle's Nicomachean Ethics.
I hear that Bush's new translation of the Nicomachean Ethics is due out soon!
At a Houston summer reading camp for Mexican-American children, he
highlighted the kinds of things volunteers could do. He also took
time for politics, raising $1.2 million for Republican Gov. Rick
Perry's re-election campaign and another $500,000 for the Texas GOP.
Right, right; appearing at a summer reading camp for Mexican-American children is *not* politics, he does that all the time, just because the little tykes thrill him so.
Perry said Bush and his wife Laura have restored honor and dignity
to the White House. Saluting Perry as a family man, Bush told the
governor who succeeded him: "I love the fact that you love your
wife."
That's *so* creepy...
This Reuters story contains more excerpts from his "speech" http://www.reuters.com/news_article.jhtml;?type=politicsnews&StoryID=1091755#
Kendall Clark -- If you've gotta blacklist, I wanna be on it. -- Billy Bragg