On Saturday, President Bush gave the commencement address at Miami Dade College. Instead of simply giving the usual platitudes about going out into the world and making a difference, the President spent about half his time giving a political speech, in which he trumpeted the cause of immigrants and pushed for immigration reform. I have to admit, my first reaction was that this was a completely inappropriate thing to do. Even though I fundamentally agree with President Bush’s immigration policy, a graduation speech is not the time or place to give a political speech. Instead, I thought, President Bush ought to have directly addressed the graduates, and said… and that’s where I got hung up. What should the President have said? Given some meaningless, forgettable speech? Used the opportunity to dispense advice that no one would remember in five years, much less take? What is the point of a guest commencement speaker, anyway?
I’ve thought about this a lot, and I just don’t get it.
In 1979, Marilee Jones applied for a job at the MIT Admissions Office. It was an entry level position to work with a group whose goal was to increase the number of women at MIT. At the time, Ms. Jones probably needed the job, and while a college degree was not mandated by the job description, she lied on her application and said she had one; she was one of probably millions of Americans to falsely embellish their resumes that year alone. And she got the job. By all accounts, in fact, she was good at her job. She has worked in the MIT Admissions office for the last twenty-seven years, rising to become Dean for the last decade. She’s won awards for her skill at the job. She co-wrote a book on the college admissions process. She has become a leading critic of the pressure of the college admissions process and of the myth that high school kids have to be perfect to get into the best schools. She was by all accounts one of the most well-liked and well-respected people in her field. And yesterday, she was forced to resign because twenty-seven years ago, she lied on her college application. Apparently, it turns out, despite her success at her job, it was a job she wasn’t qualified to have.
The House passed the contentious Iraq War funding bill yesterday, and the Senate is expected to follow suit today. Now, I have mixed feelings about this bill; on the one hand, I’ve always been a skeptic of remaining in Iraq, on the other hand some kind of funding bill needs to be passed, and I can only hope that Congressional leaders are working on something that will pass muster once the president vetoes this particular bill. That being said, this particular round of the Iraq War debate seems to have revived one of the most dangerous arguments that can be put forward in a Democratic society: that politicians should just stay out of the way of the commanders in the field. To put it bluntly, as soon as that argument wins, as soon as our politicians just let the commanders in the field make all the military decisions, we’ve ceased to be a democracy and have become a military dictatorship.
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