Add this to the ongoing list of things we will miss about Obama when he is gone at the end of the year. Besides being completely goofy, having a sitting president who isn’t afraid to drop the mic in both a joking way and in a completely serious manner when discussing important topics is so refreshing. Regardless of who wins the election in November, it is pretty much a given that the country will be without a leader who is just as quick to joke about the NBA as he is to discuss political theory and world events.
In his second commencement speech of the year, the first being a well-received appearance at Howard University, Obama barely hid his disdain for politicians like Donald Trump and went so far as to shade Trump’s plans to build a wall between the US and Mexico. Unlike the Howard speech, where he focused on hope and change, the Rutgers speech incorporated allusions to current events when warning the students to keep their minds open and to rely on knowledge rather than ignorance. You can watch a portion of his comments above, but News Observer has all of the details from the ceremony.
“A wall won’t stop that. The point is, to help ourselves, we’ve got to help others — not pull up the drawbridge and try to keep the world out.”
“In politics and in life, ignorance is not a virtue,” Obama said. “It’s not cool to not know what you’re talking about. That’s not keeping it real or telling it like it is. That’s not challenging political correctness. That’s just not knowing what you’re talking about.”
“And yet, we’ve become confused about this,” he continued, warning that the rejection of facts and science would lead the U.S. on a path of decline.
Most of the advice Obama imparted to impressionable young minds seems fairly straightforward and common sense, and yet we are all living in a country where Donald Trump is the presumptive GOP nominee. So the President’s advice is apparently needed now more than ever. Obama also received an honorary law degree from Rutgers while he was there, which is pretty baller multi-tasking. Maybe he can use that extra law degree to re-launch The Grinder in a Washington DC setting.
(via News Observer)