Obama at Wesleyan

So, Barak Obama spoke at Wesleyan. What of it?

Well, first off, we can say that his speech was nothing short of absolutely dull. If you look at any of the past Wesleyan Commencement speeches at Wesleyan, you can see how it is utterly indistinguishable from any of them. 'A call to public service...' I can't think of a single Commencement speech given here in decades that didn't have the same theme.

Of course, by public service is meant a six-figure government job in Washington, which is the high holy ground for all Wesleyan graduates. The mediocre students, of course, have to settle for some God-forsaken state capital, like Albany or Trenton, or, worse, one of those nameless ones out in the middle of the country.

This is supposed to be more morally correct than something frivolous like Hollywood, which is where 25% of Wesleyan graduates go nowadays.

(If you can wedge in public universities under the header 'Public Service' then public service sector jobs would cover about 75%, or nearly the whole of the non-Hollywood Wesleyan graduates.)

Secondly, as far as massive crowds go, as it turns out, Barak Obama did attract a larger crowd than usual for Wesleyan's commencement. But, it should be noted that his crowd was actually smaller than Oprah Winfrey's a few years ago. (Oprah's speech was sublime, it was something about some revelation that occurred to her in a restroom stall—with extensive and detailed descriptions of the event.) But for all the hype, remember that Obama didn't outdraw her Oprahness.

Thirdly, Obama probably didn't realize this, but speaking at Wesleyan is the opposite of what his campaign should be doing. It was just too spot on. Here's a guy trying to NOT seem elitist and liberal, and where does he deliver a Commencement address? At one of the most elite and elitist AND one of the most liberal college campuses in the country. It's an amazing sign of the blind spot the Obama campaign has, that they hear Wesleyan and think 'now, that's a place so highly regarded, such a pinnacle of higher education and so politically correct, it can't possibly be seen by the general public as being anything other that morally and ethically perfect.' But, it is Wesleyan's arrogant self-love, its view of itself as being politically correct, of being morally better than you, that the public, rightfully, condemns in a place like Wesleyan. And which the public will condemn in Obama in about five months.

When you think about it, it's obvious that the Obama campaign could not see how mincing and precious Wesleyan's image is, because if they could have seen it in Wesleyan, then surely they would have seen it in themselves a long time ago.

So, the earth did not move, the sky was not rent in twain. Obama spoke, and it is over. One might think that it would have been better if Obama had asked the graduates NOT to enter public service. There are so many of them living at the public expense now, and living so well at the public expense, you'd think it might have been more charitable to the average voters to let those voters off the hook for several hundred more people eating at the public trough. Heaven forbid one of these precious graduates should actually earn a dollar by producing something.

But he did fit in well here, so very well. He hit the nail on the head for the theme of the day, which was 'How to pretend to serve others and yet remain self-serving.' A lesson, (here at Wesleyan anyway), as happily taught as it was learned.