Obama, who will to speak May 13 to ASU graduates on the Tempe campus, will not be given an honorary degree, an honor universities typically give to commencement speakers.
"It's our practice to recognize an individual for his body of work, somebody who's been in their position for a long time," Sharon Keeler, an ASU spokeswoman, told The Associated Press. "His body of work is yet to come. That's why we're not recognizing him with a degree at the beginning of his presidency."
Translation: "In our opinion, the man has not yet done anything noteworthy." OH, SNAP! Wow, talk about giving the man all the credit he deserves?
You know, I've been running in nerd circles for a long time, and I have to say, this development surprised me -- especially since Obama's very, VERY popular in Nerdworld.
ASU, by the way, isn't planning to give any honorary degrees this year. Then again, once ASU gave an honorary degree to the Chinese vice minister of
Obama will, though, be getting an honorary degree when he visits Notre Dame to give the graduation speech, though that visit is full of noisy controversy.
(And above all, this entire mess of news is a hopeful thing: it's springtime, we're talking about commencement addresses by visiting bigshots, and this means that school is ending and the summer will soon be here!)
UPDATE 1: Repent, ASU! It is now wailing about how it did not intend any slight, etc. etc. I'll bet you a stack of JSTOR articles that ASU will cave in and shower Obama with honorary degrees.
UPDATE 2: Nothing says serious discourse like threats and intimidation, folowed by wailing and groveling. For goodness sake, people! (And, dude, I actually linked to HuffPo. What's the world coming to?)
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