With all seriousness due to the occasion...

Graduation was a lot like law school - kind of a whirlwind, I drank too much and the whole thing left me feeling confused and overwhelmed.

Our graduation speaker was Samantha Power, a human right journalist and current fellow in the office of one of my favorite people, Sen. Barak Obama. I really enjoyed her speech but since it came from my political perspective, I was uncomfortable because I knew most of the other students wished she'd been sent to Gitmo. You could hear low growls every time there was a disparaging comment about Dubya. Unfortunately, like many academics, she never questioned that her audience agreed that U.S. foreign policy is on the wrong path. Not everyone agrees that the Iraq war has gone "horribly awry" or that U.S. foreign policy is "short-sighted." These reactions overwhelmed the core message of her speech, that we should ask, "Why can't we?"

This is the problem I have with academics who share my political views, but not my reality. If the graduates of a law school in California don't agree with you, what kind of reaction do you think you'd get to these statements from mainstream America? Ask your average Wal-Mart shopper in Des Moines if they think that the "grey-haired men" who craft U.S. policy "blew the pre-war planning" and you'll get run over by their SUV in the parking lot. And why not? They don't need to be told what to think by the Democratic think tanks feeding straight from ivy league schools. This to me, is why Clinton was successful where Kerry was not. Clinton was relevant to the average American. He made the Des Moines Wal-Mart shopper feel good about a foreign policy that recognizes humanitarian needs and multilateralism. Clinton made a successful argument that globalization applies to politics as well as economics. He didn't talk down to Americans, the way Kerry did, pretending to be "an average Joe" where he clearly was not. We'll never escape from Dubya et al's "He tried to kill mah daddy," bomb-first, ask questions later, approach to world domination unless the Democrats stop being arrogant and start getting real.

Decide for yourself, a transcript of her speech is here.