From Gordon Suber:

Wesley Clark vs. John McCain

Friday, May 19, 2006 On Staten Island in New York City today, retired Army General, Vietnam veteran, former NATO Supreme Allied Commander, and 2004 Presidential candidate Wesley K. Clark delivered the commencement address to graduates of Wagner College. On Manhattan Island in New York City today, retired Navy Captain, Vietnam veteran, United States Senator, and 2000 Presidential candidate John McCain delivered the commencement address to graduates of The New School. Clark is a graduate of The United States Military Academy at West Point, New York. McCain is a graduate of The United States Naval Academy at Annapolis, Maryland. Clark came out of the Vietnam War on a stretcher, having suffered body wounds in four places. McCain came out of Vietnam after five-and-a-half years as a prisoner of war. If they had appeared on the same stage, it would have been a heavyweight fight between two titans of current American political discourse. But they spoke on different islands in New York, so I had to decide which event I would attend. It wasn't even a close call. Admission to Madison Square Garden where McCain spoke was the hottest political ticket in The Big Apple this day. ****** I'd been to The Garden many times for basketball games, but today there was a sense that I might witness something bigger than someone bouncing a round ball on hardwood. Outside, family and friends gathered under a Carolina Blue sky speckled with large white, puffy clouds. Their jovial nature belied what would soon come down inside the world's most famous arena. ******* The former United States Senator Bob Kerrey, himself a Vietnam veteran, and one-time presidential candidate, is president of The New School. He began to speak and it started! Mumbling. Hoots. A banner: "Our commencement is not your platform." Eight by eleven inch orange fliers popped up throughout the hall: "McCain Does Not Speak for Me." In what I considered a preemptive strike against the protests that Kerrey was certain were coming, he recognized that some in the audience objected to HIS decision to invite McCain, and implored everyone to exercise open-mindedness. It seemed to me that Kerrey was trying to take some of the body blows that he expected to be thrown at McCain. In street fighting terms, the college president was nearly coldcocked after he introduced the first speaker, 21 year-old student leader, Jean Sara Rohe. Ms. Rohe sang a folk song asking for world peace. All seemed fine-and-dandy until she pushed her prepared speech aside and gave presidential aspirant McCain a piece of her mind. "The senator does not reflect the ideals upon which this university was founded," she said to a roaring ovation. "I am young, and although I don't profess to possess the wisdom that time affords us, I do know that pre-emptive war is dangerous and wrong." Another ovation. "Osama Bin Laden still has not been found, nor have those weapons of mass destruction," she declared, as most of the audience gave her a standing ovation. ********* It was time for the Senior Senator from Arizona to speak. As he approached the lectern, scattered groups stood and turned their backs to him. More signs appeared, including one that read, "Our Commencement is not your platform." Surprising to me, McCain's voice seemed timid and uneasy. His tone was flat. The spacing of phrases that might bring applause -- seemed off. He droned on and on with little expression. He stuck to the script, bearing under the weight of the catcalls, hisses, and open laughter. More than once, I felt sorry for the Senator, but especially when some graduates walked out, and the time when McCain had quoted the poet Yeats and returned to his speech to be greeted with the caustic remark "MORE POETRY." As if the tension in the hall was not enough, when Kerrey began his closing remarks, someone shouted, " You're a war criminal," apparently referring to Kerrey's admission that he had lead a group of soldiers in Vietnam in the killing of a number of unarmed civilians. ******* Each time I return to Madison Square Garden, I will remember the day when politics ruled at "the world's most famous arena."