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Speechifying 101
Want to write presidential commencement speeches? We’ve cracked the Bush White House formula.
The speech must include local jokes/local references to make the president look cool and self-deprecating lines about what a poor student the president was.
To see how the White House handled it this year, click Continue Reading.
Coast Guard Academy today (see AP photo above):
Local reference: “I see a few ‘RCF Warriors’ out there. Some of you earned demerits for failing to correct your storage. Others got caught crawling under the fence on your way to Connecticut College.”
Bush also noted that the 228 graduates “survived R-Day, Swab Summer and Friday morning drill practice with a kind and gentle soul, Chief Dillmann. You learned to brace up, do orderlies, square meals and eat hamsters with your eyes in the boat.”
Self-deprecation: Discussed the academy’s Square Root Club, “an association of students whose GPA is so low that when you take its square root, it grows larger. Unfortunately, they didn’t have that club where I went to college. Perhaps you’ll make me an honorary member.”
St. Vincent College, May 11:
Local reference: “You’re the first class to take a mandatory course in microwaving, a requirement that was imposed after you set off a record number of fire alarms while you were trying to make popcorn. You cheered the Bearcats with the Carey Crazies. You walked through the lighted arches of Melvin Platz.”
Self-deprecation: Said that Jim Towey, the school president, wanted him to speak because “every member of the Class of 2007 will leave this campus with a priceless lesson about the importance of the English language. At least he didn’t say, ‘I’m proud to welcome to the podium a man, the first president for whom English was a second language.’”
Miami-Dade College, April 28
Deft combination of local reference and self-deprecation: “This afternoon, some of you are graduating with high honors, and I congratulate you. That’s something I never experienced. Of course, today I have done something that most of you have never experienced: I made it to campus with absolutely no traffic. And I found a nice parking spot.”
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