Jack & Jill Politics

You’ll recall that Arizona State University invited President Obama to give a commencement speech yet caused um, a stir, by not offering him the customary honorary degree. They said he hadn’t accomplished enough yet in his career! Right, it sounded kinda racist and right-thinking people decided it was. AZ was the last state to recognize Martin Luther King’s birthday as a holiday so you and I know the score. Yesterday, Obama graciously gave the commencement speech there. From the AP:

“His body of work is yet to come. That’s why we’re not recognizing him with a degree at the beginning of his presidency,” university spokeswoman Sharon Keeler said after the school’s student newspaper first reported the decision.

To quell the controversy, the university instead renamed a scholarship for the nation’s 44th president. In his remarks, Obama thanked the school for the gesture.

He also met six recipients of the scholarship named for him, and commissioned a group of Army and Air Force cadets.

He addressed the challenge straight ahead, proving there ain’t nobody more steezy than Brother Barack. For one thing, he said he’d never again pick another team over the Sun Devils in his NCAA bracket. Ha.Ha.Ha. Here’s some of his wise words yesterday in Tempe (taken partly from Politics Daily):

“I come here not to dispute the suggestion that I haven’t yet achieved enough in my life,” Obama said in a commencement speech Wednesday. With a smile he added: “First of all, Michelle (Obama) concurs with that assessment. She has a long list of things that I have not yet done waiting for me when I get home.”

“In all seriousness, I come here not to dispute the suggestion that I haven’t yet achieved enough in my life. I come here to embrace it; to heartily concur; to affirm that one’s title, even a title like president, says very little about how well one’s life has been led — and that no matter how much you’ve done, or how successful you’ve been, there’s always more to do, more to learn, more to achieve,” Obama said.

He told students, that as they graduate, their “body of work is yet to come.” He cautioned them not to become “lulled into complacency by our own achievements.”

“This is what building a body of work is all about — it’s about the daily labor, the many individual acts, the choices large and small that add up to a lasting legacy. It’s about not being satisfied with the latest achievement, the latest gold star — because one thing I know about a body of work is that it’s never finished,” Obama said. “It’s cumulative; it deepens and expands with each day that you give your best, and give back, and contribute to the life of this nation.”