As it’s described in the Washington Post:
…. The award for this year’s biggest flap goes to Rutgers University, which in the past few days has fumbled its response to the school’s commencement speaker replacement. It started Saturday when Condoleezza Rice, just two weeks before the ceremony, backed out of giving the graduation keynote after faculty and students protested her Iraq War involvement while serving as George W. Bush’s secretary of state. By Monday afternoon, Rutgers seemed to have resolved the mini-crisis by announcing that former Gov. Thomas Kean would step in.
But it wasn’t resolved. Later that night, former Rutgers football player Eric LeGrand — who was paralyzed in 2010 and has become a popular inspirational speaker — tweeted that he too was asked to be Rutgers’ commencement speaker but that the offer had been rescinded. After the issue exploded in the media on Tuesday, Rutgers president Robert Barchi issued a statement saying that LeGrand would speak at the event after all, and that “it was never our intention that Eric would be the only speaker.”…
David Roth, for SB Nation, explains:
… This all begins with idiots and their awful dreams. Rutgers, New Jersey’s state university, is one of the few institutions in the state that can broadly be said to work very well, and has survived the fat-fingered kleptocrats and reptiles and backslapping sociopaths that have attempted to loot or compromise it from the governor’s mansion…
[School president Dr. Robert] Barchi’s mandate at Rutgers has been twofold, although the two are related. The job Barchi clearly regards as foremost is that of implementing Governor Chris Christie’s over- haul of the state’s higher education system, a costly and dubiously necessary process done without any state aid, at a school that is already awash in some very dumb debt. Barchi was also tasked with gigging various college rankings systems to increase the school’s profile — out-of-state tuition is the last, best plan to pay for all this…Because this entire gambit was conceived and executed by idiots — or, more precisely, cynical technocrats without any great respect for the importance of an institution like Rutgers in a state like New Jersey — we have gotten what we’ve gotten. The goonish pretense that led the school to invite Condoleezza Rice to give the address in the first place, because she is a famous political person — and then have to rescind the invitation because a great many students and faculty consider her to be, um, a war criminal — is symptomatic of this. A former Secretary of State, even this semi-disgraced former Secretary of State, is the sort of speaker that Barchi’s Rutgers would have giving a commencement speech. But, because this is Barchi’s Rutgers, this is the Secretary of State they got.
The decision to offer the honor to Eric LeGrand, the unsinkable and happily heroic former Rutgers player who was paralyzed in a game, was a corrective — here, after an embarrassment, was the one Rutgers alum that most everyone in New Jersey feels good about. The decision to take that invitation back and give it to Tom Kean, a perfectly decent governor from the state’s long line of Anthropomorphized Boat Shoe elites, whose last year in Trenton was 1990, was a return to that parodic pretense. The late-breaking decision to have LeGrand speak as well is laudable, but the broader gong show remains what it is…
New Jersey is still New Jersey, but while it’s as self-thwarting and impossible as ever — and as wonderful, as deceptively big-hearted and lovely, and my home — the color and music has drained from the old doof-carnival somewhat… They are issuing carefully worded statements, subtly equivocated Unequivocal Statements Of Support; they are expressing disappointment and calling for more study. They take stands against government waste and abuses of power and you can’t even catch them smirking. They could all just as easily be from Connecticut, honestly. Cheaper, shabbier suits cannot be bought off the rack at Men’s Warehouse…
Belafon
Sadly, according to Cosmos, all modern mammals are from New Jersey.
Hal
Yes, let’s target the Senate’s inability as opposed to the houses constant, useless Obama care votes. That should work on anyone who has been living in a cave since 2008.
Belafon
@Hal: We all know that the only reason for sluggish job growth is too much Obamacare, too little tax cuts for the wealthy, and not investigating Benghazi.
Peter
My family brought home an adorable kitten today. Bunch of photos here. This kitten is absolutely fearless and has immediately taken control of the whole house. Send help.
Tissue Thin Pseudonym (JMN)
@Peter: I’m not messing with that terror. You’re on your own.
jl
The Warren disease might be catching… at least I hope so.
I think if the 2016 Dem primaries boil down to HRC and Biden, HRC will trounce him. And Biden probably would be weaker candidate in the general. But if Warren is not going to run, would be nice if someone did a lot of Warren style talk during the Democratic primaries.
Biden would be more fun as president. The GOP schtick on Biden would be a laff riot, both on their crazy uncle stuff and whatever new attack boogers they blow out of their noses. The GOP’s schtick on HRC will be so awful and boring, they won’t be able to quit their 90s Clinton fantasies or the misogyny. But, hey, every benefit, like a Hillary presidency, has to come with a few inconveniences.
Report: Biden Gives ‘Elizabeth Warren-Type Speech’ At Fundraiser
TPM
http://talkingpointsmemo.com/livewire/joe-biden-south-carolina
Don K
@Peter:
OMG that kitteh looks like our late Billy. We got him at eight weeks, and within hours he showed he wasn’t afraid of anything, including our year-old female. You’re doomed, your new Lord and Master has arrived.
Seriously, if this cat is half as sweet and adorable as Billy was, you’ll take great pleasure in serving him.
jl
@jl: Will the GOP bother with BENGHAZZIII!!! after HRC is elected? Or will it morph into a yet another retread of ‘Democrat surrender monkeys destroy our military’ with some special Clinton herbs and spices? I guess the latter.
But Biden Bidenating, figuring out ways to race around in a muscle car. And GOP attacks? Priceless.
PurpleGirl
@Peter: Oh, the kitten is cute. I love her/his coloration. Where did you get the kitten — from a friend or a shelter?
Peter
@PurpleGirl: From a Kijiji ad posted by someone whose cat had just given birth and needed homes for the kittens.
Higgs Boson's Mate
@jl:
I wouldn’t count my chickens just yet. She ran a wretched campaign last time around, as a Boomer she isn’t going to exactly galvanize the youth vote and if you think that she’ll carry the day with the women’s vote then Vice President Palin wants a word.
PurpleGirl
@Peter: Ah, as good as a formal rescue. How large was the litter? (I watch a bunch of kitten cams and love watching them as they grow up and become independent and confident.)
Steeplejack
@Peter:
Cute kitty is cute!
JoyfulA
@Higgs Boson’s Mate: I do know one Republican who changed her registration to vote for Hillary in the primary. She had yard signs and all, which she replaced when her still GOP husband tore them out, repeatedly. She never said a word about Palin.
But that’s a sample of one.
Peter
@PurpleGirl: Four. Two males, colored like ours (although his brother had more white on his belly) and two calico girls.
Higgs Boson's Mate
@JoyfulA:
The women’s vote sure didn’t help Hillary in the 2008 primaries, did it?
Villago Delenda Est
Oh, so the fuckhead who is the current President of Rutgers, the one who invited the war criminal in the first place, is an Outlaw Joisey Whale stooge.
Figures.
Higgs Boson's Mate
@Villago Delenda Est:
It seems that anyone appointed by Christie is either incompetent, a stooge, or both.
xenos
@Higgs Boson’s Mate: The youth vote will not set records for Hillary, but if you flip a decent percentage of the white women over the age of 50 vote, she could run the table. There is a reason the demonization-wurlitzer is getting revved up. If she has decent coat-tails there are a lot of Gerrymandered R+4 districts that could flip in the House.
srv
@xenos: Hillary needs a youtful VP.
xenos
@Villago Delenda Est: I have family members who are tenured profs in the humanities at Rutgers. The bullshit they have to put up with is beyond belief – departments being consolidated, expanded, defunded – the worst sort of pointless administrative churning.
Anyone who is familiar with some douchebag MBA coming into work and blowing up the culture and customer-service systems of a business just because they need to look busy is painfully familiar with this.
Yatsuno
@srv: Julian Castro. The olds stroking out alone from that will be worth it.
xenos
@srv: Hillary needs a VP who makes her impeachment-proof to the wingnuts. Is Ellison free?
jl
@Higgs Boson’s Mate:
@JoyfulA:
I am assuming that whatever Democrat runs in 2016 has a more than decent chance.
If Hillary Clinton has not learned anything from her 2008 primary run, and especially if she hires the same kind of arrogant dingbats, then that would be a bad thing. I hope it doesn’t happen.
If she has learned a few things, I think she has a very good chance. As I said, I think any Democrat with a good record and is a good campaigner will have a decent chance. But no guarantees of course.
So, my talk was assuming a decent scenario. Sort of like talking about my next vacation, assuming a comet doesn’t hit the earth before then.
Edit: And Palin? I don’t think so. She has a history now that she didn’t in 2008. If she were serious, she would have taken the chance old wargrumps gave her. But she didn’t. Now, just another another disastrous idea and bad joke from Kristol.
Edit2: I would like to see Warren run, but, hey, it’s a free country. Maybe ol’ crazy uncle Biden will do some Warren talking before he (very probably) gets beat by somebody.
Alison
@Higgs Boson’s Mate: I think you have to consider that the landscape in 2016 will be entirely different than that of 2008. Back then, Dems were angry and frustrated after 8 years of Bush and his coterie of bastards, and wanted someone entirely new and different and inspiring and all that. Obama filled that role perfectly – Clinton, unfortunately for her, didn’t really. I mean, yes, she would have been the first woman President, but she had *that name* and she’d been around forever and has close ties to a lot of people and groups that certain blocs of voters on the left were sick of or found distasteful.
But in 2016? We’re not going to be looking desperately for someone brand new and totally different – we’re going to want someone to continue the work of the previous 8 years, to protect the ACA, to (hopefully) appoint another left-leaning SC judge or two, etc. Clinton may still have (for some) some of that previous baggage, but she also certainly won’t roll back any of the positives from the last decade, and she also has a lot of respect among various groups, especially young women, for her time as SoS and for the bullshit she’s taken and fought back against.
Higgs Boson's Mate
@xenos:
Just being a woman is not going to accomplish that for her. She will have to be a much more compelling candidate than she was her last time out and she will definitely have to offer something more then “I’m a woman so you women should vote for me.”
For me, she is and will remain a hawkish, lying, corporatist, triangulating product of the weasel-plagued DLC and it’s No Sale.
jl
@Higgs Boson’s Mate: I hope HRC has learned something from 2008. I can think of people I would prefer, but if it comes down to the general, and it is HRC versus a lunatic GOPer, I have to make the better choice, even if I are not wild about it.
Edit: changed ‘we’ to ‘I’ in order to avoid raising hackles.
Higgs Boson's Mate
@efgoldman:
The party’s leadership ought to be asking themselves why, at a time when we desperately need to energize our voters, we’re going to likely be offering them a choice between an old white man and an old white woman.
Morzer
@Higgs Boson’s Mate:
Partly because we don’t have that many potential candidates. We lost a lot of governors over the past 8 years, many of our brighter Senators are pretty newly minted, the House isn’t exactly seething with stellar potential. We’ve got one obvious “big gun” – but part of the reason she’s the obvious big gun is longevity.
Tissue Thin Pseudonym (JMN)
@efgoldman:
. . . I would vote against her. As much as I like and respect her, we absolutely MUST stop this trend of electing spouses, siblings, and children of previous officeholders.
Morzer
@Tissue Thin Pseudonym (JMN):
Michelle Obama versus Rand Paul.
Still want to sit out?
Michelle Obama versus Jeb Bush?
Still want to sit out?
Ruckus
@efgoldman:
I’m with Higgs. I don’t think Hillary was a good candidate last time and I don’t think she will be better this time. We are old, some of us will look for new and interesting things but a lot of what those of us in her age bracket do is what we know from our pasts. She ran a horrible campaign so she had better have learned something or she is exactly who I thought she was.
So who else if she doesn’t get her act together? I have no idea. Probably will have to suck it up and vote for her.
Morzer
@Ruckus:
I have a hard time getting past her remarks about Zimbabwe during the primary against Obama. I thought it was utterly irresponsible nonsense. That said, if it’s HRC or the GOP, I can vote for her as a stopgap against the tide of conservative lunacy and corruption, while looking for a brighter prospect for the future.
jl
@Morzer: Sadly, Michelle Obama has the sense not to get involved. At least that is what she says.
As for new blood, That is hard to come by. Old (RICH) white men are about the only game in town in terms of political visibility on the prez sweepstakes map. But who knows? Both Bill Clinton and Obama were not considered prominent before they started winning primaries. Maybe somebody unexpected will get in and win it.
But if we are going to talk about established people who are prominent, it;s old rich white people. That is the way the game is rigged. I didn’t mean to start off a horse race war with my comment. I just glad that if Warren is not going to run, Biden might do something useful with his run before he (very probably) gets beat.
Morzer
@jl:
The problem though is that the people who could credibly get involved are generally drawn from the pool of senior politicians (governors, Senators) – and that’s the talent pool that the Democrats have, for one reason or another, allowed to drain away of late.
I agree that a horse race war is about as futile a pastime as it gets.
trollhattan
@jl:
After eight years living through the shit her husband puts up with daily, she’ll run alright, very fast, stage left. Imagine presidenting while black AND a woman. Michelle O is nobody’s fool.
Morzer
@trollhattan:
I get the impression she is sane enough to want to have something like a normal life with her daughters before they both vanish off to college.
mclaren
@Belafon:
You, sir, just won the internet. :-)
MikeJ
@Tissue Thin Pseudonym (JMN): Voting against somebody because of whom they are related is as stupid as voting for somebody for the same reason.
A Humble Lurker
I thought I heard Bernie Sanders was thinking of running. I’d love to just see him in the primaries, honestly.
ulee
It’s too bad about Cassie Gaines. I love to see her belt out her heart.
ulee
Awwwwwww. Alabama. Awwwwwww. Alabama. She had it down and looked good doing it.
schrodinger's cat
Happy Mother’s Day!!
ulee
@schrodinger’s cat: This is another dumb holiday made up to make money. I love and appreciate my mother all the time. I don’t need a day. Bill Maher would speak the truth on this. The rest of you will stay running scared. What a con. What’s next, father’s day? I know Valentines Day is past so we can’t fuck with that anymore and make money on it. Then comes Christmas, the ultimate of degraded days.
ulee
And anyone who cooked their mother breakfast or took her out to eat or phoned her or onward. You should have been doing that anyway. You shouldn’t need a manufactured holiday to tell you to do so.
Groucho48
@Higgs Boson’s Mate:
Concern troll comment of the week end. Also, nice slipping in the right wing view that all women are fungible commodities.
And, I don’t even especially like the thought of Clinton as President.
dr. luba
@ulee: It doesn’t matter what I think about the holiday. My mother thinks it’s important, so it’s important.
Pogonip
Manufactured holidays? How about Sweetest Day, Boss’s Day, Secretaries Day?
Gussie
@Alison: Well said.
Josie
Until we get a different Supreme Court or a constitutional amendment, money is the name of the game in politics, and Hillary is the one who can raise the most money. That makes her the most electable. It is vital that a Republican not be elected president and that the Democratic nominee has long coattails to hold at least one of the houses of congress. I can’t see anyone but her being able to accomplish that.
Higgs Boson's Mate
@Groucho48:
Believing that Clinton doesn’t have it in the bag simply because she’s a woman does not strike me as concern trolling. She was a weak candidate who ran a crap campaign in ’08 and unless she’s studied up she’ll be a weak candidate in ’16. There’s one hell of a lot of distance between believing that women are too sharp to vote for Clinton solely because of her gender and viewing the women’s vote as fungible.
Ken T
@Higgs Boson’s Mate: “It seems that anyone appointed by Christie is either incompetent, a stooge, or both.”
Mostly they’re incompetent stooges. Why settle for either/or, when you can have both? But in fact, in Christieworld, being a stooge is mandatory. Incompetence is merely an add-on feature.
Ken T
RE: HRC and 2016. I’d like to put a serious question out to the community – If not HRC, then who? We all know all the reasons why Hilary might not be the best candidate we would hope for, but instead of rehashing the negatives, how about some positive ideas? And no, I don’t mean Warren, Biden or Sanders. If Hilary is too old, so are they. Warren is only 2 years younger, Biden and Sanders are 5 years older. So who does the Democratic Party have to offer that progressives could rally around? If the ideal age for a Presidential candidate is, let’s say, about 50 – 65, then who would be a feasible candidate in that age group? Sherrod Brown? Is there anyone else? Let’s try to put up some positive ideas. How about it?
Another Holocene Human
@Higgs Boson’s Mate: It helps to have a better candidate on offer, yes.
Another Holocene Human
@srv: That only works if you seriously believe Hilary might have a stroke in office and Van Jones will become acting POTUS.
Anyway, fuck youthful–I’ll vote for Pelosi and Reid all day long.
Another Holocene Human
@jl: “Ready for Hilary” has not convinced me that she’s learned anything.
Another Holocene Human
@Alison: The one plus for Hilary Clinton for me is that she’s shown she has balls from her time in State.
My biggest minus on her column is the fact that she’s much more hawkish than I’m comfortable with, confirmed by her record in State.
I’d rather have a hawkish SOS and a dovish POTUS than the other way around. I’m still unsure of how Kerry is working out although honestly most of what’s going on is well out of his control.
Another Holocene Human
@Ken T: How about Julian Castro? Or K Gillibrand?
Didn’t Obama go from winning in ’04 to running in ’08? Yes, yes he did. (His Iraq war stance and the rapid change in public sentiment helped, of course.)
Democrat, please. We have a huge bench. The Clinton camp is playing mind games by releasing early polls which got the GOP’s attention and the GOP is using Cleek’s Law on Democrats. “Republicans fear her–she must be The One!”
Look at the clowns the GOP wants to run. Then look at the Democratic Party. We have options. They have … uh .. JEB?
Morzer
@Another Holocene Human:
Only if you think that your water boy is going to pitch a shutout. Julian Castro is a great guy, but he’s nowhere near ready to run for the presidency. Mayor of San Antonio ain’t nothing, but you’ll have a hard time convincing anyone that he’s got the chops on e.g. foreign policy. Gillibrand is a good Senator, but again, not someone who has shown any sign of being either eager or ready to move to a higher level.
askew
@Ken T:
Maryland Governor Martin O’Malley. He has a long list of progressive accomplishments and has been an effective leader for years. He’s clearly running for President based on his activities over the past year and he’s who I am backing in 2016.
There is also Montana Governor Brian Schweitzer.
Morzer
Speaking of the second-rate and the desperate, guess who became the latest “moderate” Republican to deny that humans cause climate change:
http://talkingpointsmemo.com/livewire/rubio-denies-climate-change
Bob In Portland
Surprise surprise.
Who’d have thought that the US would lie to its own citizens, or that the good citizens of Balloon Juice could be fooled again?
Citizen_X
@Morzer: Fine, Senator. Bye-bye Florida, then.
ThresherK
@jl: In spring ’08 I had a pretty good idea of the invective and spittle that Hillary’s existance (let alone campaigning) would create on the right.
It did not prepare me for the re-ginning of the right’s crazee for Obama when he started winning.
Morzer
@Citizen_X:
Funny isn’t it, when you reflect that not so so long ago this was Marco the Reasonable Republican who might just be a threat to lead his people out of Democratic bondage?
I guess the media just got a little ahead of themselves.
Bob In Portland
Not to be confused with these mercenaries.
Bob In Portland
2006.
kathleen
@srv: Hillary needs to surround herself with better people (starting will Bill, she has a genius for picking sleazoids). Then, she needs to develop better instincts. (Not voting for Iraq, not giving a speech defending NASA last week, laying off the Wall Street cuddling.)
I don’t see either happening.
Console
@askew:
Governor
CarcettiO’ Malley does have that whole health exchange screwup though.Ken T
@askew:
Askew, are you from MD? How familiar are you with O’Malley’s record? Because if someone like that who does not already have national name recognition is going to break through, it will take for those who know him best to start pushing the name and creating some buzz. If he’s really running, and you’ve already decided to support him, I’d love to start hearing his case made in forums like this. The news media/punditocracy is too wrapped up in Bush/Clinton II to let anyone else through, unless and until they are forced to. So please, start forcing.
(I’m from NJ, so unfortunately, I have nothing to offer from my locale. As the song says, “Clowns to the left of me, jokers to my right …”)
Villago Delenda Est
@Bob In Portland: HODOR!
askew
@Ken T:
I am from Minnesota so I only follow O’Malley from a distance. But, there have been some articles in Washington Post, etc. on his presidential ambitions. I expect we’ll hear more about him after the midterms. It’s early enough that he can build a successful case before the Iowa caucuses.
My reasons for supporting O’Malley –
2 successful terms as governor where he signed into law – DREAM Act, increased taxes on rich, more money for education, repeal of death penalty, same-sex marriage, gun control laws, higher minimum wage + the economy in Maryland has been decent even during this recession.
Morzer
@Villago Delenda Est:
“For the night is dark and full of conspiracy theorists.”
Keith G
@askew: A rhetorical question for all:
Why support anyone at this time, unless you have had a close up view of their skill set and how they manage themselves and others? I am looking forward to seeing who has the fierce commitment to fight for my party’s nomination and also who has the ability to be a leader as they go mano a mano with the GOP.
For me, there are no favorites at this point.
randy khan
*sigh* I wish people would get the freaking Condi Rice story right. She was *not* disinvited, but instead decided on her own that it would be a terrible, terrible thing for bad people who don’t like her to disrupt what should be a happy day for all graduates, so made the terrific sacrifice of giving up her $35,000 fee and not giving the speech. She was not, of course, at all worried about how the protests would make her look, not one little bit.
Sarcasm off now: She also did not appear to worry at all about how pulling out with 2 weeks to go before the ceremony would make things difficult for the people who had invited her, as her comfort and convenience really were the only things that she thought about even one little bit.
Ken T
@Keith G: “Why support anyone at this time …”
Keith – I’ll answer your question from my point of view, as someone else who does not have a favorite yet. The fact is that the media’s love/hate affair with Hilary (and the Republican’s hate/hate affair) is sucking all the oxygen out of the room. And comment threads on progressive blogs that just keep repeating all the same reasons why Hilary should not be the best we can do simply add to that effect, by keeping the focus on her instead of on the alternatives. The only way anyone else will be able to break through is for their supporters to start making the positive case for them in any and every forum available. If the rest of us just sit around waiting to see what happens, Hilary wins by default.