zooropop40
Refugee
^ On the contrary, it was Notre Dame who invited him, and the Notre Dame administration which stuck to its guns about having him speak there. Most of those protestors bused or drove in from elsewhere--Randall Terry, Alan Keyes, Norma McCorvey etc.; these people have nothing to do with Notre Dame. According to the local paper, there were only 26 actual students (out of more than 2600) boycotting the ceremony. Now if actual students and faculty who objected to Obama speaking there and/or receiving an honorary degree wished to protest, great, go for it, but this should never have become a free-for-all with random pro-life activists busing in from all over the Midwest to wave signs, push around bloody dolls in baby strollers, hire planes with pro-life banners to fly around overhead for weeks, etc. A commencement speech is NOT a political event, it is for the students. And no, Obama was not their first pro-choice commencement speaker, nor even the first pro-choice sitting President to deliver a commencement address there...let alone all the other Catholic teachings Presidents who've spoken there haven't supported: on capital punishment, Iraq War, Latin America policies, etc.
A friend of mine who's taught there for many years (and was at the ceremony yesterday) emailed me a link to the speech, which I watched most of. It seemed like a very fine speech.
hmm, well if this is true (and I hope it is) then the media sure made it out to be like the campus was divided and the students protesting was more than 26. I guess the controversy overshadowed the fact that maybe it wasnt notre dame students as much as radical right wing people.