President Obama is this year's commencement speaker at the Arizona State University
ASU decided, somewhat unusually, not to give him an honourary degree
The Huffington Post has been all over this
Stupid move.
Here is the list of all past ASU honourary degree recipients
usual mix of local politicos, senior scientists and random nominees including some people who apparently played some sort of game.
To say:
""University spokeswoman Sharon Keeler said Tuesday that the University awards honorary degrees to recognize individuals for their work and accomplishments spanning their lifetime. 'Because President Obama's body of work is yet to come, it's inappropriate to recognize him at this time,' Keeler said.""
is a bit farcical, Obama seems to be relatively highly accomplished...
The past recipients include Doug Wilder, Henry Cisneros, Kim Campbell and Barry Goldwater - he lost the Presidential election. Some more on buzzflash.
This is a bit sad.
Inconsistent would be the kindest description.
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Actually, ASU usually doesn't give an honorary degree to the graduation speaker.
And Goldwater was - of course - from Arizona. And that was nearly 50 years ago.
HuffPo is making a big deal of nothing.
(And yes, I'm @ ASU).
But how dare they not annoint the messiah!
It would be all well and good if ASU had just said they don't usually give commencement speakers hon. caus. - but, they didn't, they specifically said Obama was not accomplished enough - which implies they thought about it;
secondly, yes Goldwater is an Az, but he got the hon. caus. before he ran for President, and Wilder, Cisnero and Campbell are not Az's. Look at when they got their degrees.
Finally, the 2008 commencement speaker got an honorary degree, in fact the only honorary degree.
So they did it last year.
The 2007 commencement speaker was an almuna of ASU and thus would not have got an honorary degree.
This looks really bad for ASU.
It is a PR disaster and only symbolically important really (since after all, Obama hardly needs an honorary degree to validate his accomplishments). ASU is finally admitting that it is a PR disaster and they screwed up.
I will guess that some bureaucrat did it because they were afraid of offending our state legislature, which has an unusually large number of far right, um, potsherds. I don't mean simply that it has a large number of Republicans, but that our Republicans have more far-outers than average. There are several in our leg. that have degrees from the University of Phoenix and don't believe the state should spend any money on higher education, and some who don't believe the state should spend any money on any education at all, grade schools included. Somebody thought of these people and their brain went into vapor lock.
I don't see this as a PR disaster at all! I say 'bravo' for not buying into the persona of Obama. I see a million sheep with the wool pulled over there eyes. Congrats to ASU for some clear vision!
Folks. Whatever you think of Obama's policies, future prospects or persona, his ability to get elected President in the circumstances and at his age are a world class accomplishment.
ASU's argument is farcical and false on the face of it.
They may have other reasons to not award an honorary degree, but those stated are false and an embarrassment to the university.
See: http://www.asuwebdevil.com/node/6058