It was inevitable. The school’s policy is to bestow honorary degrees on politicians only after they’ve left office? So what? It’s not like Barack Obama is a politician; he’s a doctor of HopenChange. He’s a Messiah. Insults against the Messiah can not stand.
“There was no intended slight,” Crow said by telephone from his office in Tempe. “We had not yet talked about what honors we might give him as our commencement speaker, and we still have a month to work all that out. We don’t want anyone to think we do not recognize what he has achieved and what he means in America.”…
Past recipients of ASU honorary degrees included an aloe-vera magnate, the director of “Victor Victoria,” a Chinese official, a Canadian politician, and lots of donors and fundraisers…
“Typically, the university’s policy relative to honorary degrees has been that people who are sitting politicians, we don’t given an honorary degree,” he explained. “It’s kind of a local thing. We’ve gotten a huge reaction from a lot of folks as if some decision was made not to give him one. Far from it.”…
Crow had said in a statement when the school was selected by the White House: “The progressive leadership he has already displayed and the values he espouses are a great example for our students and for the extended community that surrounds us.”
ASU’s president said officials now are considering conferring an honorary degree, regardless of local custom. “We intend to recognize him in multiple ways,” Crow said. “As to this issue relative to the honorary degree, we don’t know where it came from.”
If you want to witness one of the most blatant displays of shilling for The One in media history (and that’s a high bar to reach), check out Newsbusters. Guess which university denied an honorary degree to a sitting Republican president for ideological purposes?
by Stephan Tawney on Fri, Apr 10, 2009 at 7:29 pm