From great inspiration come great rewards
Tonight, we gather to affirm the greatness of our Nation — not because of the height of our skyscrapers, or the power of our military, or the size of our economy. Our pride is based on a very simple premise, summed up in a declaration made over two hundred years ago:
We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain inalienable rights, that among these are Life, Liberty and the pursuit of Happiness.
That is the true genius of America, a faith — a faith in simple dreams, an insistence on small miracles; that we can tuck in our children at night and know that they are fed and clothed and safe from harm; that we can say what we think, write what we think, without hearing a sudden knock on the door; that we can have an idea and start our own business without paying a bribe; that we can participate in the political process without fear of retribution, and that our votes will be counted — at least most of the time.
Do you recognize the speech?
I expect some of you all do. You’re astute political observers, you watch all the important events unfolding on television, and you remember great words, great inspirations. But, in case you don’t, that’s Sen. Barack Obama, D-Ill., giving the keynote address at the 2004 Democratic National Convention in Boston. (You might’ve forgotten his speech, even as marvelous as it was, from the headache you got watching John Kerry boat across Boston harbor, looking as ill-at-ease as when I saw him in Milwaukee wearing a leather jacket, and then salute the crowd in the Fleet Center.)
Now, some of you are sure to ask, why exactly are you quoting Barack Obama at us, Wes?
The answer: Because I forgot to mention the other day that he will be my class’ commencement speaker here at Northwestern, in June.
Pretty exhilarating, really. He’s a phenomenal speaker, and I’m glad that they’ve found someone well-known and likable. After all, I would have hated for them to bring someone that I’d feel obligated to dislike — like, say, last year’s commencement speaker, who is also my other well-known senator, Sen. John McCain, R-Ariz. — and I missed seeing him speak at the Human Rights Campaign dinner in Phoenix my parents went to.
So you can say that now I’m definitely looking forward to commencement. McCain was criticized last year for being “too political” in his commencement address, but I listened to the speech, and I would say that his flaw was in being too partisan. That’s surprising, and dismaying. You might question, then, the choice of yet another senator to speak at commencement. But Barack Obama is not, thankfully, John McCain. He is rarely a partisan in his speeches, and was surprisingly apolitical in his keynote address at the DNC:
[T]here is not a liberal America and a conservative America — there is the United States of America. There is not a Black America and a White America and Latino America and Asian America — there’s the United States of America.
The pundits like to slice-and-dice our country into Red States and Blue States; Red States for Republicans, Blue States for Democrats. But I’ve got news for them, too. We worship an “awesome God” in the Blue States, and we don’t like federal agents poking around in our libraries in the Red States. We coach Little League in the Blue States and yes, we’ve got some gay friends in the Red States. There are patriots who opposed the war in Iraq and there are patriots who supported the war in Iraq. We are one people, all of us pledging allegiance to the stars and stripes, all of us defending the United States of America.
Obama is a famously inspirational speaker, who won great praise for his campaign speeches and his speech at the DNC. Last year, he told graduates at Knox College, in central-western Illinois:
[America was founded as] place where destiny was not a destination, but a journey to be shared and shaped and remade by people who had the gall, the temerity to believe that, against all odds, they could form “a more perfect union” on this new frontier.
And as people around the world began to hear the tale of the lowly colonists who overthrew an empire for the sake of an idea, they started to come. Across oceans and the ages, they settled in Boston and Charleston, Chicago and St. Louis, Kalamazoo and Galesburg, to try and build their own American Dream. This collective dream moved forward imperfectly — it was scarred by our treatment of native peoples, betrayed by slavery, clouded by the subjugation of women, shaken by war and depression. And yet, brick by brick, rail by rail, calloused hand by calloused hand, people kept dreaming, and building, and working, and marching, and petitioning their government, until they made America a land where the question of our place in history is not answered for us. It’s answered by us.
Have we failed at times? Absolutely. Will you occasionally fail when you embark on your own American journey? You surely will. But the test is not perfection.
The dividing line between a good speaker and a great speaker is the ability to bring some kind of enlightenment or catharsis to the audience. And that’s where, as I understand it, John McCain failed, and it’s certainly where Barack Obama usually succeeds. And, of course, when you choose a commencement speaker, there’s no question that you want the latter. I think we got it.
If, like me, you want to get all jumpy and excited about June’s speech, go download it, for free, from the iTunes Music Store. Play the MP3, and I guarantee it’ll give you goosebumps, especially about ten minutes into the speech, where he leaves behind his lawyer-lecturer voice and rises sharply into a preacher’s sermon on the phrases I just quoted above.
And, come June 16, you can watch our Webcast of the commencement ceremony, which will be held outdoors at Ryan Field.
I’m looking forward to it. Goosebumps, I tell you.
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