Former White House Chief of Staff Andrew Card was lustily booed as he was awarded an honorary degree during the graduate school commencement at the University of Massachusetts, Amherst. We’re not talking scattered boos from a radical students’ group. This was a huge percentage of the commencement’s attendees, including professors. Take a look.
The boo birds weren’t angry with Card’s pathetic involvement in the NSA wiretapping scandal that was recently revealed in former Deputy Attorney General James Comey’s testimony before Congress. (Card joined Alberto Gonzales on the rush to John Ashcroft’s hospital bed, where they hoped to convince a barely conscious man to authorize a constitutionally questionable domestic spying program.)
No, they were angry with Card over the big issue of the day — the Iraq War. After all, it was Card who in August 2002 set up the White House Iraq Group, a group of foreign policy experts and political messaging gurus whose job it was to sell the Iraq War to the public. Karl Rove, Karen Hughes, and chief Bush speechwriter Michael Gerson were part of WHIG, as were Condoleezza Rice and Stephen Hadley.
Of course, every member of that group either has or will go on to earn honorary degrees and make tons of money as a lobbyist, consultant, or think tank wonk. Screwing up can be big business in Washington — the only people who will let you know how badly you blew it, apparently, are college students.
