Why I protested Tony Blair’s commencement speech at Colby

Your personal prejudices have what to do with the Colby graduation ceremony?

So you decided to ruin a hard earned graduation ceremony to promote your political agenda….how thoughtful.  YOU should be ashamed of yourself, but I suspect your self righteousness and selfishness will prevent you from seeing what you did as being completely wrong.

and now the BDN gives him MORE air time……..clueless all the way around.

Professional protestor who didnt get the antidote to Bush Derrangement syndrome

I would have thought you would protest that the graduates had received such deficient education that they would not protest having Blair as their Commencement speaker.

I think SpruceDweller said it best and it deserves repeating: ” To ignore such wrongdoing for the sake of shallow trappings is the antithesis of proper education.” It was a teachable moment and I applaud Lawrence and the others for making the effort to educate these graduates. It was not the graduation that was interrupted, only the speech. Every graduate and every parent had their moment in the sun with no distractions.

I have followed the two stories of Tony Blair’s commencement
speech at Colby and Lawrence Reichard’s response. I am interested in comment by
Colby College’s administration. Why would such a fine university choose such a corrupt
British Politician? Has our moral culture descended into power worship? Are we
so impressed with wealth and power, that it is the only criteria when selecting
speakers? Is it wise to highlight a leader that has practiced such questionable
ethics to inspire graduating seniors? What of the Colby graduates, how can they
be so mute to the situation? In my experience of my graduation and that of my
two sons, our consciousnesses were much displaced from any realization of the
commencement speaker. I was just happy it was over. Maybe that is it, it really
does not matter who is speaking as long as you get a big name that sounds good
for the parents and the program. I really wonder how much the disruption by
Lawrence Reichard really impacted the event. At least all of the grandmothers
had a good story to tell when they got home. One commenter mentioned Saddam
Hussein, he would be an excellent candidate for a commencement speaker. Name
recognition is good, ally of the United states, mass murderer, good relationship
with past presidents.    

After 4 years of hard work these parents/students who borrowed/paid over $150,000 and put in thousands of hours of time spent studying had to listen to you during their commencement?  It doesn’t matter if Hitler himself was speaking at graduation, the class of 2012 and their families have more than earned the right to sit through this ceremony uninterrupted.

What a Dork!

Very appropriate photo accompanying this piece.
However, the caption should read: “Lawrence Reichard, Mouth Wide Open.”

I respectfully disagree with you.  As Colin Powell has publicly noted, both Mr. Blair and Mr. Bush had a very difficult decision to make and made it on the best information possible.  All of the information, not just select pieces that you use to make your argument, were factored into the decision.  Some, but not all, of the information was, in fact, highly flawed. 

Would the flawed information have made a difference?  No, not based on the totality of the information.  Blair and Bush–two political opposites–made a very difficult decision that freed 25 million people.  That’s a mark of leadership, period, and from an exercise of informed leadership comes consequences and good.

Perhaps there will be protests against the crimes against humanity by the greatest evils of the left ever known–Stalin, etc.–at Mr. Reichard’s family events from here on out. 

The saddest–and perhaps scariest–part of all of this is that there really was no disruption–there really is no story. The hundreds of newspaper articles, thousands of tweets, dozens of blogs that have been written about this are much ado about nothing. Blair was not “interrupted” during his speech. Most of the people at the ceremony were unaware that anything even happened. Even the AP reporter who started the whole thing apparently had to ask a security officer what had happened because no one had really heard it.

It was perhaps the lamest and most inept attempt to “disrupt” a ceremony ever conceived by man. The fact that Lawrence and Lisa are taking such pride in it is almost laughable. They didn’t bring any attention to the the debate about Tony Blair; they only brought attention to the fact that they are disrespectful, selfish, children (not necessarily because of their beliefs, but because of their behavior) who need a timeout. Without a sensationalistic news media who apparently had no real news to cover so they felt they needed to manufacture some, this non-story would have gotten the attention it deserved: none.

Perhaps these people should have taken a page from the Colby class of 2012 itself. Several of them wore white armbands with peace signs on them to protest, but out of respect for their fellow graduates and their families, remained quiet and heard what turned out to be a very good (and non-political) speech that, by the way, got a standing ovation from the VAST majority of the crowd and graduates.

It has taken me significantly longer to type this comment–and will probably take you longer to read it–than the entire “disruption” of the ceremony. Why we (and I include myself) are still talking about this subject and these sad, sad people three days later is beyond me.