Bill Clinton Unifies at RIT while Bush & Cheney Generate Protests at Coast Guard Academies

Picture of William J. Clinton by Rodger Caldwell

Sign of the times: choose the President of the free world carefully – for your commencement speech, that is. The President you choose could make or break a perfectly fine day!

Former President William J. Clinton spoke to applause and peaceful celebration at the Rochester Institute of Technology in New York on May 25, 2007. Just two days before, President Bush gave the commencement address at the Coast Guard Academy in New London, Connecticut to a very different scene. He was greeted by about a thousand anti-war and impeachment protesters, the first such march in that town since the 1980’s. Vice President Cheney was featured speaker at the ceremony at West Point in New York to a thousand of like protesters at the Academy’s entrance. Even at such non-political events as these, the public’s radically different view of each politician was glaringly present.

Rochester Institute of Technology in New York boasted not only a joyous gathering, but also a picture perfect spring day for their graduation ceremony. As the reigning President of the renowned institution, Albert J. Simone, celebrated his last year of service, the other former President gave the commencement address. William J. Clinton’s address showed his knack for unification in a time of divisiveness. He looked relaxed, refreshed and genuinely moved with the beauty of the event. As a friend of RIT trustee, B. Thomas Golisano, whom he met through his work with the William Jefferson Clinton Foundation, he was right at home. His speech sparkled as he managed to provide eloquence, significance, and inspiration about the state of the world today, and – almost - leaving politics at the door. A tiny reference had to be made to his wife running for President, as he mentioned she was jealous he got to go there, while she was off on a campaign trip.

Bittersweet, it was the last year of the renowned institute’s President, after 15 years of success building the university’s world-class status it enjoys. But joy and celebration were the order of the day. After a spectacular drum and bagpipe march, the graduates came marching in to cheers. Albert J. Simone spoke of the somewhat dismal state of education in the U.S., yet remained optimistic and encouraging to the new grads, stating that in summary, “there is plenty for you to do!” He urged them each to incorporate service to youth in their careers. Yohei Sasakawa and Bill Clinton were awarded honorary degrees. Yohei Sasakawa was honored for his astonishing dedication and success in fighting leprosy internationally.

Greeted with applause throughout his speech, President Clinton shared that “…the older I get, the more idealistic I get! But how you think, and how others see you thinking, will have a very great deal to do with the life you have and the life your children and grandchildren have….How much behavior in the world today is being justified by people based on what someone else did to them?”

Every time you do anything because you say ‘I have no choice, because of how destructive people were to me’, you give up your freedom. You are only a free person when you recognize that …you are still free to decide how to respond.”

He continued, emphasizing how much we all have in common. “It is interesting that the most important scientific discovery in recent years, the sequencing of the human genome, told us more about what we have in common than our differences! According to the scientific research…we are 99.9% the same.”

I pray that you make everything you can out of that one tenth of one percent of your genetic makeup that makes you a unique, God given marvel! But I pray also that you will walk away from so much of today’s madness by remembering the other 99.9 percent. Good luck and God bless you.”