How to Confound a News Story

If there's one thing media-types (liberal and conservative alike) really excel at, it's confounding a news story. A good example is the recent news about President Obama's upcoming commencement speech for the graduates at Arizona State University, and the (inane) controversy over whether or not the President should receive an honorary degree. When a student journalist received a (dubious) tip that the University would not bestow the honorary degree upon Mr. Obama, the administration almost immediately began receiving hate-mail, angry phone calls, and even a couple of death threats.

So, then comes the bullshit. Some people are asking whether the decision was racially motivated. Some think its a political issue (Those damn Arizona State Republicans). Conservatives like to home in on the part about the death threats. Typical liberal radicalism.

Actually, what happened is clear to anyone who actually pays attention.

The student journalist--his name is Adam Sneed--obviously either had an uninformed source, or an informed source that he twisted to make his story more interesting. There was no meeting had which resulted in a decision to "not give Barack Obama an honorary degree." In fact, according to ASU president Michael Crow, the University doesn't give honorary degrees to "sitting politicians" as a manner of policy. So this decision was kind of already made before it was, well, made.

As for the hatemail and threats; well, it's already clear that people didn't realize that Obama didn't have a shot at getting the degree in the first place. Considering that, you can imagine that people would be upset if you appear to be playing down the significance of being the leader of the most powerful nation ever, and the first black one at that. In terms of death threats, I'm sure McDonald's headquarters got even more death threats when they took the McChicken off of the dollar menu. People are idiots, liberal and conservative.

Nevertheless, Arizona State University folded to all the pressure (much like any smart organization would have) and conceded by renaming what they call their "most important" scholarship in honor of the President.