Politicians top the list for commencement speakers

PROVO — Former President Bill Clinton is scheduled as the commencement speaker at six colleges and universities this spring.

His wife, presidential candidate Hillary Clinton, will speak at Wilbeforce University near Xenia, Ohio, on May 5.

'Tis the season for commencement and for speakers who range from serious politicians to comedians like Bill Cosby, who will appear at Carnegie Mellon University's 110th commencement, and Julia Louis-Dreyfus, of "Seinfeld" fame, who will speak at Northwestern University.

President Bush will speak May 11 at small Saint Vincent College east of Pittsburgh, where the Pittsburgh Post-Gazette reported that some students, in a packed meeting last week covered by C-SPAN, opposed the school's invitation and also have demonstrated against it.

"(I knew) there would be part of the population that would be appalled by his selection," said James Towey, who left his White House job as Bush's director of the Office of Faith-Based and Community Initiatives last year to become president of Saint Vincent.

Towey said the invitation is not an endorsement of Bush's politics or policies by the religious school.

"There are faculty members who don't want him to come," Towey told the Post-Gazette. "There are Benedictine monks who don't want him to come. But on Commencement Day, when the president of the United States arrives on campus, he will be received with Benedictine hospitality."

If that sounds familiar, you might have been following the visit of Vice President Dick Cheney to Brigham Young University, where he will deliver the commencement address today.

Cheney also will speak at the U.S. Military Academy at West Point, N.Y., on May 26. He also spoke at commencement there in 2003.

Cheney makes regular rounds to the military academies.

He spoke at commencement in 2002 and 2006 at the U.S. Naval Academy, and in 2001 and 2005, Cheney spoke to graduates at the Air Force Academy.

He has also visited other schools. In 2002, he was the commencement speaker at Michigan State University, followed by the University of Missouri in 2003, Florida State University in 2004, Auburn University in 2005 and Louisiana State University last year.

Other members of the Bush Administration will fan out across the country to appear at commencements this spring.