NEW HAVEN, Conn., May 21 -- Today, for the first time since George W. Bush entered the national stage -- really for the first time since he graduated in 1968 -- he let his old Yale ties show.
"I'm a better man because of Yale," Bush told several thousand new graduates as he received an honorary degree at Yale's 300th commencement. "Yale for me is a source of great pride. I hope that there will come a time for you to return to Yale to say that, and feel as I do today. And I hope you won't wait as long."
Several Yale graduates Monday wore mortarboards with models of power plants to bring attention to their concerns about the environment.
(AP Photo)
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For the man from Midland, who suppressed his Eastern Establishment origins when he went into politics, it was a gesture of reconciliation. But as Bush made peace with his Ivy League roots, many graduates were not so gracious.
As Bush, in blue academic robes, accepted his award and rose to speak, the graduates raised a sea of yellow protest signs with slogans such as "Conservation, not Consumption," and "Execute Justice, not People." Students booed, hissed and heckled the president, and some turned their backs on him, made gagging sounds or shouted "Go away!"
Students from the School of Forestry and Environmental Studies wore miniature power plants on their mortar boards, burning incense through tiny smokestacks. Scott Hedges, whose power-plant graduation cap even had a toy coal car, joked that "emissions requirements were waived" for his polluting cap under Bush's new energy policy.
More than 170 Yale professors boycotted the ceremony because they said Bush was not worthy of his honorary degree. Students wore stickers declaring "Got Arsenic?" and "5-4," a reference to the Supreme Court decision that essentially handed Bush the presidency. A banner flying from a dorm room window portrayed Bush as Mad magazine'sAlfred E. Neuman wearing a pin that said "Worry."
The angry reaction to a GOP president was no surprise on a liberal campus where Bush lost last fall's presidential vote by 2 percentage points -- to Ralph Nader (a fact Bush noted in his address). His 16 percent showing put him 49 points behind Al Gore.
Students in Bush's own Davenport College at Yale, which now claims his daughterBarbara, showed no support for the famous alumnus. "The sentiment in Davenport is definitely against Bush," said Will Durbin, a graduating senior passing out protest signs. Surely there's a Bush supporter in the group. Durbin looked around. "I don't see one," he said.
Even Delta Kappa Epsilon, Bush's Yale fraternity, did little to boost its brother. There was a Bush-Cheney sign on the front door of the Victorian frat house on Lake Place, with beer floats hanging outside and empty Miller Lite cups on the porch -- but only one person at home. "I'm in a hurry to get ready," said Michael Buck, answering the door as he put on his tie for commencement. Isn't DKE showing support for Bush today? "Well, we're not rallying against him," Buck said.
Bush disarmed his critics, or a few of them, with a self-deprecating speech about his lazy college years. "To those of you who received honors, awards and distinctions, I say well done," went the president's set-up line. "And to the C students, I say, you, too, can be president of the United States." In a reference to Vice President Cheney, a Yale dropout, Bush continued: "So now we know: If you graduate from Yale, you become president. If you drop out, you get to be vice president."
The president joked about studying in the library with his Yale classmate, Richard Brodhead, now dean of Yale College. "We had a mutual understanding -- Dick wouldn't read aloud, and I wouldn't snore," Bush said. As for his partying, Bush told the graduates: "If you're like me, you won't remember everything you did here."
He also made mirth of his oft-noted struggles with spoken English. When he enrolled in a Japanese haiku course, Bush recalled that an adviser "said I should focus on English. I still hear that quite often. But my critics don't realize I don't make verbal gaffes. I'm speaking in the perfect forms and rhythms of ancient haiku." Lest Yalies pillory their president's linguistics, Bush added: "I want the entire world to know this -- everything I know about the spoken word, I learned right here at Yale."
The president had the bad luck of following to Yale this weekend Sen. Hillary Rodham Clinton (D-N.Y.), a Yale Law School graduate and liberal icon. Clinton was warmly embraced by the graduates for a speech that pressed all the liberal buttons: women's rights, children, the environment, health insurance, AIDS, AmeriCorps, the Peace Corps and humanitarian assistance. Her "dare to care" speech drew a standing ovation.
While the university's administration chose Bush to speak at commencement, the students themselves chose Clinton to speak the day before, on Senior Class Day. The Yale Herald, a campus newspaper, made a spoof statistical analysis showing that while 90 percent of the class welcomed Clinton, it would take 257.8 years for the seniors to want Bush to be president -- which in turn created a 50 percent likelihood that "this will prompt Bush to once again believe Yale is slighting his family."
The issue of "slights" almost always comes up when the topic is Yale and the Bush family. Bush was angered that his father didn't get an honorary degree until the third year of his presidency, and when someone leaked his less-than-stellar transcript.
Richard Levin, the Yale president, has worked hard to woo the Bushes. He hosted the first couple at his home Sunday night, the same block where Bush lived as an infant while his father was a Yale student. The Levins earlier spent a night at the White House, and Levin invited Bush to speak at Yale's commencement -- a rare honor for a recipient of an honorary degree, given only to sitting presidents.
Bush, now that his daughter Barbara has finished her freshman year, has obviously come around. Bush's father came back to campus recently to speak. Today, Bush was honored along with Sam Waterston, Class of '62, an actor active in liberal causes, and Robert E. Rubin, treasury secretary under President Clinton, and former Mexican president Ernesto Zedillo, along with luminaries from the arts and sciences.
"I'm not sure I remembered to thank them the last time I was here, but now that I have a second chance," Bush said, "I thank the professors of Yale University. That's how I've come to feel about the Yale experience -- grateful."
The program included a glowing tribute to Bush. "His ability to reach out to others was evident even in his early years at Phillips Academy in Andover, Massachusetts: He institutionalized the informal campus games of stickball," it said. "Conducting a focused and hard-fought presidential campaign, Bush made the theme of 'compassionate conservatism' his watchword."
Some students heckled and laughed as Levin praised the Bush family and spoke of the president's "inclusiveness." But Bush softened the hostility with his brief speech, balanced between humor and reflection.
"When I left here, I didn't have much in the way of a life plan," he acknowledged. "Life takes its own turns and makes its own demands, writes its own story. And along the way, we start to realize we are not the author," he added. "We begin to understand that life is ours to live, but not to waste."
There were still boos and yellow protest signs when Bush finished -- but not as many. Yale junior Jacob Remes, one of the protest organizers, pronounced the speech "depressing." But he admitted that Bush won over some critics. "I think people were sort of tickled," Remes said.
