Today is graduation day for the Class of 2010 at West Point. The ceremony is over; President Obama was the speaker. I wasn’t there, but one of my good friends was. Here are his comments.
Well, the Class of 2010 is graduating and President Obama just completed the commencement speech to the class. A beautiful day. The speech had been billed as a major policy speech. It was not. The first half of the speech was good and recognized the history of the Academy and its graduates and the challenges to the Class of 2010 as they prepare to join the Long Gray Line of those before him.
But then to my ears there was nothing about policy, only platitudes. There was his admonition that the US must be true to our Constitution and that the US cannot lead the world if it loses its economic strength. But he did not make new policy, reinforce old policy, make strong comments about the challenges of Iran and North Korea and lack of Chinese and Russian support to quell those challenges. In short, it was a watered down speech full of platitudes that will not ever be billed as a meaningful marker of our time.
It was disappointing to my ears…
