Condoleezza Rice backs out of Rutgers commencement
Source: AP
NEW BRUNSWICK, N.J. (AP) — Former Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice has backed out of delivering the commencement address at Rutgers University following protests by some faculty and students over her role in the Iraq War.
Rice said in a statement Saturday that she informed Rutgers President Robert Barchi that she was declining the invitation.
"Commencement should be a time of joyous celebration for the graduates and their families," Rice said. "Rutgers' invitation to me to speak has become a distraction for the university community at this very special time."
The school's board of governors had voted to pay the former secretary of state under President George W. Bush and national security adviser $35,000 for her appearance at the May 18 ceremony.
Read more: http://www.chron.com/news/article/Condoleezza-Rice-backs-out-of-Rutgers-commencement-5450461.php
= new reply since forum marked as read
ill give her that.
makes her even more scary to me tho...
ive always feared shed show back up and attempt to run for elected office..
tho id imagine she has enough skeletons in the closet to keep a dogs family happy for generations...
you don't get an oil tanker named after you for nothing, after all 
you posted only to insult me?
nice.
you should be super proud of yourself for stating no opinion except your personal feelings for me !
you are the king/queen of passing judgment. congrats.
if youre looking for correct grammar, don't read my posts .. especially if it bothers you that much...
just a lil advice for the future when you see me name listed and decide you have something irrelevant to say 
P.s.
your reading comprehension ability is severely lacking..
notice how I was talking about her having skeletons in her closet.. then saying you don't get an oil tanker named after you for nothing... meaning undoubtedly lots of shady things in order to get it...
maybe take all your rage out on someone else?
was someone mean to you today or do you always let your emotions get the best of you ?
which is why the fact that she was probably the most intelligent person in his cabinet scares the crap out of me..
apparently giving her credit for not being a complete moron is seen as 'you love condi!' on DU.. for a second there I thought I was somewhere with rational people who don't jump to name calling and instant conclusions without even reading an entire post...
I musta forgot where I was posting
There are a lot of very opinionated people here, but I never take their comments personally and neither should you. If they were really that smart, they'd be agreeing with you.
if they have to pay off a republican nutcase, maybe she's on the low end and they were trying to get by cheap.
Anyway, I'm glad she backed out.
Cher
intelligent.. in an evil sense of the word
shes a scary person to me..
overly educated with a batshit ideology
hope people were holding up signs of the former oil cargo ship that was named after her by Chevron...
they renamed it in 2001 when she took office...
Glad you're here! Here's something I'll add to the whole Contradicta thing. It was very instructive to me, and came as good news.
During bush/cheney, I called my Congressman a lot. But because he was already on our team regarding opposition to the Iraq War, I also tried to make it a point to call OTHER PEOPLE's Congressmembers, too. I'd call other Dems to help add calcium to their backbones, and also the Dark-Siders who, I thought, needed to know of AND HEAR the opposition that was alive and well and in multitudes, surrounding them. It wasn't all rubber-stampers around them. It was US as well, and they needed to know that even if it didn't result in any changes of heart (and it never did, those assholes stayed solid in their support of Darth cheney and puppet). 
So, in one conversation, I referred to Contradicta by exactly that - the name I'd come up with for her because it just seemed to fit her so well. Then, about a week later, I was calling around again. To one of those same offices - a Dem Congressperson. Our sweet little lady war criminal came up in conversation again. (Note - it was at a time when she had either testified or made some other lame comment on "Meet the Press" pushing for the war, so she was the topic of a lot of this at that moment.) I referenced Contradicta again and the staffer who took my call started snickering. He said - "Contradicta! That's pretty good! Somebody called that in here last week! I love it!" And I said - "uh, well, that was probably me! I came up with that and I did call your Congresscritter's office last week, and I'm sure I mentioned it." And he started guffawing and saying - "HAH! That was you? That's really great! It's sooooo funny! It's all over the Hill now!"
My Number-One takeaway from that pleasant little experience was a real revelation: Those staffers talk. Those staffers compare notes. Those staffers INEVITABLY gossip about the crazies out there in voter-land and the phone calls they took that day and probably MANY anecdotes from the "you-wouldn't-believe-what-this-one-dingdong-was saying..." department. Obviously my phone call had come up in the conversation. And I guess they all found it memorable enough and catchy enough and maybe also funny enough that it spread throughout the staffers and volunteers and interns and pages and others fairly low on the food chain on Capitol Hill, who probably meet in the Congressional dining room or passing in the hall or in the bathrooms or out for drinks after work in Georgetown somewhere. Many of them, I bet, are friends and hang out together a lot. And some of them, I'm sure, have political aspirations of their own, and figure THIS is a good way to get started, or at least get a taste of what it's like to work on Capitol Hill. And you KNOW they gossip. And you never know with WHOM they might be gossiping. Maybe somebody big now? Maybe somebody who will be big in the future? You never know what kind of seeds you may be planting for the short run OR the long term, and how you might have influenced somebody's thinking on some issue! You just never know!
My second takeaway from that is - it is REALLY, SERIOUSLY, STRATEGICALLY ESSENTIAL to have something gimmicky and catchy and stick-in-the-mind memorable because it WILL get remembered. It WILL get shared and passed around over coffee or drinks after work or over the water cooler in the corner of the outer office or some such. It WILL get chuckled over, the same way that happens with a good joke or some insane routine you heard the morning deejay do on the radio that morning, or some great one-liner on "Saturday Night Live" or that Jimmy Kimmel or Jon Stewart got off the night before. And it becomes GREAT AMMO for your next debate with some knuckle-dragger. Especially if it happens to be a whole lotta true. I was very proud of coming up with the nickname Contradicta. I thought it fit. I thought it was a fitting riff off both her rather pretentious polysyllabic name AND what she routinely did for a living while a member of the bush/cheney administration: talking with a forked tongue.
I've just never been impressed with that woman. I've never been impressed with her so-called much-vaunted "brains" or "intellect" (how could anybody be regarded as smart when they stood for and advocated the ridiculous, pie-in-the-sky dumb-ass ideas she did and still does?) and I've seen her speak again and again. I watch body language a lot. And I do find myself reading into it and trying to interpret whatever signals I think I see, looking for further meaning (and unspoken, subliminal truth). And I noticed also - that she has a tendency very frequently and ironically to shake her head a lot while speaking, kinda like a nervous tick. Shaking it as if to say "no" whenever she's making a "yes" assertion with her words, and then bobbing her head nervously up and down to infer "yes" whenever she's denying something. Real schitzo mixed-message stuff. And her voice often trembles and flutters and shakes while she's speaking, as though somebody just suddenly reached up the back of her skirt. Whenever she talked, even while sitting at some "Meet the Press" table or panel discussion, or even while testifying before Congress, it always sounded to me as though she was being goosed.
The woman's a freakin' trainwreck. I don't care how many degrees or highfalutin' jobs she has or what she's appointed to next. She's a mess. To me, she's little more than a sarah palin with an advanced degree.
Good to have you with us! Thank you, btw! You will notice a LOT of very clever people who are near-genius in their insight and also who can turn a phrase like a master toreador! LOTS of literacy and word brilliance around here! Some people will have you at their screen names! (SalmonChantedEvening alert!) I learn tons every time I'm stop in!
OMD!!
Cher
needs a new pair of shoes I guess.
along with the rest of the gang, should be.
