"The senator does not reflect the ideals upon which this university was founded."
So said New School University senior Jean Sara Rohe, with Senator McCain sitting just a few feet away during New School University's commencement exercises.
To tremendous applause, Ms. Rohe continued to pummel the pseudo-Maverick.
She added that she knew what McCain would be saying to the graduates since he had promised to deliver the same speech he gave at Rev. Jerry Falwell's Liberty University last weekend and Columbia University on Tuesday.
"He will tell us we are young and too naive to have valid opinions," Rohe said. "I am young and though I don't possess the wisdom that time affords us, I do know that pre-emptive war is dangerous. And I know that despite all the havoc that my country has wrought overseas in my name, Osama bin Laden still has not been found, nor have those weapons of mass destruction."
Poor McCain never stood a chance at this traditionally progressive university, whose president is former Democratic Senator Bob Kerrey of Nebraska.
McCain later thanked Rohe for her "Cliff's notes" version of his speech, and then, as expected, delivered remarks that were nearly identical to his earlier appearances.
He reaffirmed his support for the Iraq war but urged debate and dissent. And he repeated the theme of youthful self-assuredness mocked just moments before by Rohe.
"When I was a young man, I was quite infatuated with self-expression, and rightly so because, if memory conveniently serves, I was so much more eloquent, well-informed and wiser than anyone else I knew," McCain said. He added that he would have been right at home in the opinionated world of blogs.
As he spoke, several dozen students and faculty turned their backs to him and lifted signs saying "Our commencement is not your platform."
A few students yelled catcalls at McCain, saying things like "full of it," and "We're graduating, not voting."
If only regular Americans (and the media) reacted the same way these students and Jon Stewart did. McCain is no moderate, he is no maverick.
He is a puppet of the radical right, much to our chagrin. Indeed, he is worse--he is duplicitous, masking himself as a moderate while practicing as nothing more than a Machiavellian Republican zealot who will do anything to gain more power, not for the sake of the country, but for the sake of his self-promotion.
Today, John McCain met his match in the form of a college senior.
Hopefully, America will follow Ms. Rohe's lead.
UPDATE: The New York Times' story is now available. The following excerpts are relevant:
Noting that Mr. McCain had promised to give the same speech at all of his graduation appearances, Ms. Rohe, who was one of two students selected to speak by university deans, attacked his remarks even before he delivered them.
"Senator McCain will tell us today that dissent and disagreement are our civic and moral obligation in times of crisis, and I agree," she said. "I consider this a time of crisis, and I feel obligated to speak."
She continued, "Senator McCain will also tell us about his strong-headed self-assuredness in his youth, which prevented him from hearing the ideas of others, and in so doing he will imply that those of us who are young are too naïve to have valid opinions.
And you will not believe what McCain said. The man has lost
every iota of respect I may have had for him.
After yesterday's event, Mr. McCain told reporters he felt "fine" about his reception. "I feel sorry for people living in a dull world where they can't listen to the views of others," he said.
Mr. Kerrey, on stage, had accused the protesters of "heckling from the audience where no bravery is required."
But one graduate, Aisha Nga, 22, of Atlanta, said protesters were not hiding in the crowd. "Bob Kerrey said we weren't very brave, but I think a lot of people who were booing would say it to his face," she said after the ceremony. Like many of her classmates, she wore an orange armband to protest Mr. McCain's presence. In an interview later, Mr. Kerrey praised students for showing restraint. "They could have done all sorts of things under the umbrella of guerilla politics to destroy the event, and they didn't," he said.