skippy the bush kangaroo: not that she had to explain herself

Sunday, May 21, 2006

not that she had to explain herself

jean rohe, the young woman that took john mccain't to task before he gave his canned speech to the new school in noo yawk, writes on the huffpost exactly why she felt she needed to address his address in her address.

it's rather long and rambling (we were not impressed with her protestations that she stayed up really late to re-write her commencement speech; how does she think we do this blog?), but we did enjoy her retort to mccain't's dismissal of her words:

more importantly, i feel obligated to respond to one thing that mccain told the new york times. "i feel sorry for people living in a dull world where they can't listen to the views of others," he said. this is just preposterous. yes, mccain was undoubtedly shouted-out and heckled by people who were not politely absorbing his words so as to consider them fully from every angle. but what did he expect? we could've all printed out his speech and chanted it with him in chorus. did he think that no one knew exactly what he was about to say? and it was precisely because we listen to the views of others, and because, as i said in my speech, we don't fear them, that we as a school were able to mount such a thorough and intelligent opposition to his presence. ignorant, closed-minded people would not have been able to do what we did. we chose to be in new york for our years of higher education for the very reason that we would be challenged to listen to opposing viewpoints each and every day and to deal with that challenge in a nonviolent manner. we've gotten very good at listening to the views of others and learning how to also make our views heard, even when we don't have the power of national political office and the media on our side.

dont' worry, jean, you've got the power of blogtopia on your side! and yes! we coined that phrase!

posted by skippy at 12:54 AM |