Starting your day off with Teh Funny (how did it start where Interwebers wrote the Teh?) Arizona State: Obama unready for degree
President Barack Obama may be delivering a commencement address at Arizona State University this Spring – one of three campuses where the president will send off the graduating classes of 2009 – but he won’t be coming home with any degree.
While “it’s common for universities to confer honorary degrees on commencement speakers,” Dawn Teo writes from Tempe for the Huffington Post,“Arizona State says it has specific rules for recognizing academic achievement and Obama’s ‘body of work is yet to come.”
She cites ASU Media Relations Director Sharon Keeler as saying that Arizona’s honorary degrees are given “for an achievement of eminence” and that the president was not considered for an honorary degree because his body of achievements, at this time, does not meet the criteria.
Now, is that really fair? The president surely has a body of achievements. He was a community agitator, he worked hard on behalf of ACORN, he ran for the Chicago State Senate, he was possibly born in Hawaii (that’s a joke, let’s not go there,) he taught constitutional law, he became a US Senator and voted present a lot, wrote a few books that sold very well, then ran for president. Then he….you know, I started writing this paragraph as a joke, was going to mention many of his foreign affairs gaffes and his bloated government measures, but, really, no matter what one thinks of Obama – and he was certainly way too experienced to be the President – it sure seems to me that he does have the enough experience to be given an honorary degree. Strange, eh?
Maybe it has something to do with Obama really having been nothing special without his hard left friends, his Chicago machine connections, and Secretary Teleprompter. It does seem like a snub. Or maybe ASU which is in a good Red State is annoyed by all the anti-American talk and Bush bashing Obama has engaged in.
According to the ASU State Press, ASU President Michael Crow told the degree committee that “significant contributions to education and society over the course of a person’s career merit consideration for an honorary degree.”
Well, if we go by that definition, I guess he doesn’t deserve one. Still seems to be a slight, though. I wonder if Obama will all of a sudden have to pull out of giving he speech?
It’s still kinda funny, though.
Others: Don Surber, Outside The Beltway, Jules Critteden, Hot Air
The President of the United States is not accomplished enough to get a degree from ASU. LOL! Are you kidding me?
* Lawrence Douglas Wilder: The nation’s first African-American governor in Virginia received an honorary degree and delivered the commencement address at ASU in 2004.
* Rita Colwell: A microbiologist who was the 11th director of the National Science Foundation, received an honorary degree in 2004.
* John Christian: A long-serving lawyer and community activist, received an honorary degree of Doctor of Humane Letters in 2002.
* Jane Dee Hull: Arizona’s first elected female governor received an honorary degree.
* Alfredo Gutierrez: A long time Arizona legislator, was given an honorary doctorate in 2000.
* Kim Campbell: Canada’s 19th prime minister, received an honorary degree in 2005.
* Lord John Browne of Madingley: The President of the Royal Academy of Engineering and Chief Executive of BP, received an honorary degree in 2005.
* Peterson Zah: The one time president of the Navajo Nation was honored in 2005.
* Rex G. Maughan: The founder, president, and CEO of Forever Living Products and Terry Labs, was honored in 2002.
Cut their Federal money and I bet they would think it over.
They must be all Republican Right Wing fanatics like some of the people on this site.
Bite ME!
HAHA he doesn’t want one he is getting a better one, from Notre Dame 54% of Catholics voted for Obama in 2008 http://www.cnn.com/ELECTION/2008/results/polls/#val=USP00p2
**Dear sir,
I ask only that you correct the error in your post’s title. I haven’t enough time, or will, to argue for changes in your thought processes.
It is “too” instead of “to.” You seem ripe for an ASU honorary. Not too bright and just “right.”