College Try.(the planned commencement speech of Barack Obama at Arizona State University)

With summer almost here, and the green shoots on the ground (if not on the Dow) grown to leafy fullness, the White House has completed an annual springtime chore: choosing among the many invitations from colleges and universities for the boss to address the graduating class. This year, three were accepted. On May 13th, President Obama speaks at Arizona State University, in Tempe; four days later, at the University of Notre Dame, in South Bend, Indiana; and, five days after that, at the United States Naval Academy, in Annapolis, Maryland.

In recent years politicians have been given a run for their money at commencement time by anchorpersons and Hollywood celebrities, but loftily placed public officials, especially those who can be credibly deemed statesmen, are still the most sought-after speakers--and the biggest "get" of all, of course, is the President of the United States. The President is a statesman ex officio, a guaranteed publicity magnet, and a person whose fame and entourage can bathe even the roomiest campus in a glowing aura of importance. (Another plus: Presidents don't demand speaking fees or airline tickets.) The feeling is mutual. Your statesman regards a campus backdrop and academic robes as the ideal stage set and costume for the utterance of large, grave thoughts. Winston Churchill was between prime ministerships when he delivered his "Iron Curtain" speech at Westminster College, in Fulton, Missouri, in 1946, but he was introduced by President Truman, which made the occasion official. A year later, Secretary of State George C. Marshall announced his plan for war-ravaged Europe under the trees of Harvard Yard. In 1963, President Kennedy chose commencement at American University, in Washington, D.C., as the venue for the speech, perhaps the finest of his Presidency, in which he called for a ban on nuclear tests in the atmosphere.

If a President happens to have made himself detested--by starting or escalating a bloody, ill-conceived war, say--he is wise to limit his campus appearances to the service academies, where students and faculty alike are subject to military discipline and unlikely to be rude to a Commander-in-Chief, even one whose folly threatens their lives. But a merely unpopular President is normally a trouble-free choice--and Barack Obama is anything but unpopular, especially on campus. He's brainy, he writes books, he's pouring billions into education, his team bulges with professors and Nobelists (and the odd ex-president of Harvard), he follows March Madness, and his idea of a lucrative side job is teaching at a university--none of which explains why the first of his graduation-day bookings was met with a dis and the second with a Donnybrook.

As for the dis, Arizona State's lese-majeste was less lese than advertised. When word got out that the invitation did not include an honorary degree, Obama did not complain. Nevertheless, awkwardness ensued. A.S.U.'s president explained that his institution no longer confers honorary degrees on "sitting politicians." A university spokesperson unhelpfully pointed out that at A.S.U. honorary degrees are reserved for "someone who's really outstanding, who has made outstanding contributions in their field." Obama, whose field is being President, hasn't been on the job long enough to qualify. On the other hand, Obama will be A.S.U.'s first outside commencement speaker in thirty years, which is a big honor right there. And the university hastened to expand its main financial-aid program and rename it the President Barack Obama Scholars Program. Despite the weather forecast--a hundred degrees and very, very sunny--an audience of sixty-five thousand is expected, Obama's largest since Inauguration Day.

Notre Dame planned from the start to confer an ...