Well it is the time of the year again when seniors begin to get nostalgic and the class is brought together by various events including "Senior Class Nights" and "Senior Week." The last and final celebration is commencement, where the class listens to one last speaker together. The time is festive and unifying bringing families, administrators, faculty and students together for one final moment. Get the theme here? James Carville might say, "It's about bringing people together, stupid!"
Therefore, it should come to no surprise that many of my classmates and I were astonished to learn that our graduation was to be highlighted by Al Gore -- one of the most divisive political speakers of our lifetime.
Yes Gore, a man so diminished by his devastating loss to President Bush that he has been relegated to nothing more than Democratic attack dog status. In doing so, he has gone completely off the deep end in a way which is entirely embarrassing to his own party.
The former Vice President has shown his true colors on many occasions. For instance, he made a statement claiming that the Bush administration is "disguising the most radical effort in American history to take what rightfully belongs to the American people and give it to the already wealthy and privileged." Yes, Bush is like a crazy reverse Robin Hood!
Even John Kerry agreed that Gore is too left of mainstream. ABC News reported that, "The Kerry campaign has generally kept at arms' length from Gore, who ... has made scathing comments about Bush and his administration that have gone beyond the kind of rhetoric Kerry has employed."
So yes, this is the man who will be speaking at my graduation. A divisive partisan who is so washed up that he is practically unemployable in the private sector (except on university campuses) and is shunned by his own political party.
It is nice that in our final hour together every right-of-center student and parent will get to feel completely alienated as they listen to a partisan political rant which is entirely insulting to their beliefs.
But it might not be too bad. If Gore speaks at all like he did during the 2000 debates we will all probably just fall asleep.
However, there is more to this story than a simple bad choice. Everything about this speaker reeks of divisiveness right down to the way he was chosen.
Traditionally the Class Council agrees on a list of speakers that they send to the Board of Trustees to be reviewed for help in selecting a speaker. The list is prepared by representatives of the class together. They seek to select choices that will have broad appeal to the student body.
So my first question upon hearing the choice of Al Gore was, "Did the Class Council really meet together and choose him as a speaker?"
The answer lies in the News-Letter article announcing the selection of Al Gore. Notice how, other than our Student Council Class President, not a single member of the Class Council was quoted or said to have been involved in the process.
Why? Because when it came time to draw up the list of potential speakers, our Class President failed to consult anyone else from our Class Council.
That is what stings the most about this situation. The normal process was shunned and ignored and most of the people we elected to lead our class were mere bystanders in a process in which they all should have been involved.
This is the story of this year's 2005 Class Council. Time and time again petty bickering has derailed the proper administration of the class. Where was Disorientation? Why was the first Senior Night (a great success) turned into a reason to seek impeachment of members of our Class Council?
Now our graduation is tainted by a speaker who will make half of the people in the audience feel uncomfortable and was never the legitimate choice of the Class of 2005.
Our commencement should be unifying and celebratory in a manner representative of the entire class. The focus should be on our collective accomplishment. I hope both Democrats and Republicans can agree on that.
--Eric Wolkoff is a senior political science major.
