Across the nation this week, caps and gowns are on parade, “Pomp and Circumstance” is being played in seemingly endless loops, and mortarboard tassels are being transferred from left to right en masse upon command. Graduation season is upon us. Yet while college seniors and honorary degree candidates around the nation step forward to receive their diplomas, Yale University has taken the unusual step of subtracting from, rather than adding to, its list of illustrious graduates. This move is all the more noteworthy in that the recently de-degreed are a sitting president and a long-serving Senator of the state where Yale is located.
Yale University President Richard Levin announced on Tuesday afternoon that both George W. Bush and Joe Lieberman had been stricken from the roles of Yale College graduates. Because a bachelor’s degree is a requirement for admission to Yale Law School, Lieberman has also been stripped of his diploma from that institution. Asked for an explanation for this unusual action, Mr. Levin cited Yale University trustees’ unanimous opinion that the two men’s actions in recent years “reflected levels of intelligence vastly inferior to what we expect in Yale applicants, let alone graduates.”
President Bush was more specifically faulted for his consistent inability to form sentences that adhere to the rules of standard English, his total mismanagement of the Presidency, blind commitment to a calamitous policy in Iraq, and years of evading the staggering scientific evidence in favor of global warming.
Above: George Bush at Yale, a dim bulb even then.
The move may have come as a shock to the public at large, but many of Mr. Bush’s college classmates see the President’s loss of degree as a form of retroactive justice.
“George was never the brightest bulb in the chandelier,” a former fraternity brother of the president recalled. “In fact, you know those ‘How many Harvard students does it take to screw in a light bulb? …. How many Yale students does it take to screw in a light bulb?’ jokes? Well, if one of the Yale students is George Bush, it would definitely require at least one more. And that’s not a joke. I speak with the experience of one who had to help him change many a light bulb back in the day. I actually feel like my Yale degree means something now that I know he doesn’t have one.”
Other Bush classmates have offered further evidence of what one called the President's "sub-human intellect." Many recall seeing the President engage in such acts as eating arts and crafts paste for breakfast, repeatedly sticking his tongue into electric sockets, and inserting tens of jelly beans up his nostrils.
Above: Two ex-Yalies
Senator Lieberman, for his part, cemented his place on Yale’s roll of dishonor only recently. Though University officials had long viewed him as an obnoxious dullard, they had been prepared to tolerate the Senator’s Yale affiliation until his parroting of Mr. Bush reached the point of “criminal inanity."
“Senator Lieberman’s knee-jerk jingoism and whole-hearted support of the so-called ‘war on terror’ nearly cost him his Senate seat in the 2006 election,” Mr. Levin noted. “I’m sorry that they did not do so. But they have now cost him his status as a college graduate. I would gladly bump him back to elementary school if it was in my power to do so.”
Mr. Lieberman’s fate was sealed, according to Mr. Levin, by recent remarks in support of President Bush’s address to the Israeli Knesset on the occasion of the Jewish state’s 60th anniversary. Mr. Bush used that opportunity to issue a thinly-veiled criticism of Senator Barack Obama, the leading Democratic candidate for the White House, for his willingness to consider entering into direct diplomatic dialogues with the leaders of pariah states like Iran and North Korea.
“As Nazi tanks crossed into Poland in 1939, an American senator declared: ‘Lord, if I could only have talked to Hitler, all this might have been avoided.’ We have an obligation to call this what it is,” President Bush proclaimed. “[T]he false comfort of appeasement, which has been repeatedly discredited by history.” (LAT)
Despite protests from his former comrades in the Democratic Party, Senator Lieberman, now an Independent and vigorous supporter of Republican presidential hopeful John McCain, was quick to signal his agreement with Mr. Bush. “The President,” Mr. Lieberman noted in a public statement, “got it exactly right.” (LAT)
That comment was the nail in the coffin of Mr. Lieberman’s Yale degree, Mr. Levin noted. “I’ve looked back at some of the President’s history class term papers and can say with confidence that he couldn’t even tell you what century World War II was fought in. This is not a man who is qualified to give history lessons, much less offer counsel on the ways of diplomacy.”
Yale University President Richard Levin announced on Tuesday afternoon that both George W. Bush and Joe Lieberman had been stricken from the roles of Yale College graduates. Because a bachelor’s degree is a requirement for admission to Yale Law School, Lieberman has also been stripped of his diploma from that institution. Asked for an explanation for this unusual action, Mr. Levin cited Yale University trustees’ unanimous opinion that the two men’s actions in recent years “reflected levels of intelligence vastly inferior to what we expect in Yale applicants, let alone graduates.”
President Bush was more specifically faulted for his consistent inability to form sentences that adhere to the rules of standard English, his total mismanagement of the Presidency, blind commitment to a calamitous policy in Iraq, and years of evading the staggering scientific evidence in favor of global warming.
Above: George Bush at Yale, a dim bulb even then.The move may have come as a shock to the public at large, but many of Mr. Bush’s college classmates see the President’s loss of degree as a form of retroactive justice.
“George was never the brightest bulb in the chandelier,” a former fraternity brother of the president recalled. “In fact, you know those ‘How many Harvard students does it take to screw in a light bulb? …. How many Yale students does it take to screw in a light bulb?’ jokes? Well, if one of the Yale students is George Bush, it would definitely require at least one more. And that’s not a joke. I speak with the experience of one who had to help him change many a light bulb back in the day. I actually feel like my Yale degree means something now that I know he doesn’t have one.”
Other Bush classmates have offered further evidence of what one called the President's "sub-human intellect." Many recall seeing the President engage in such acts as eating arts and crafts paste for breakfast, repeatedly sticking his tongue into electric sockets, and inserting tens of jelly beans up his nostrils.
Above: Two ex-YaliesSenator Lieberman, for his part, cemented his place on Yale’s roll of dishonor only recently. Though University officials had long viewed him as an obnoxious dullard, they had been prepared to tolerate the Senator’s Yale affiliation until his parroting of Mr. Bush reached the point of “criminal inanity."
“Senator Lieberman’s knee-jerk jingoism and whole-hearted support of the so-called ‘war on terror’ nearly cost him his Senate seat in the 2006 election,” Mr. Levin noted. “I’m sorry that they did not do so. But they have now cost him his status as a college graduate. I would gladly bump him back to elementary school if it was in my power to do so.”
Mr. Lieberman’s fate was sealed, according to Mr. Levin, by recent remarks in support of President Bush’s address to the Israeli Knesset on the occasion of the Jewish state’s 60th anniversary. Mr. Bush used that opportunity to issue a thinly-veiled criticism of Senator Barack Obama, the leading Democratic candidate for the White House, for his willingness to consider entering into direct diplomatic dialogues with the leaders of pariah states like Iran and North Korea.
“As Nazi tanks crossed into Poland in 1939, an American senator declared: ‘Lord, if I could only have talked to Hitler, all this might have been avoided.’ We have an obligation to call this what it is,” President Bush proclaimed. “[T]he false comfort of appeasement, which has been repeatedly discredited by history.” (LAT)
Despite protests from his former comrades in the Democratic Party, Senator Lieberman, now an Independent and vigorous supporter of Republican presidential hopeful John McCain, was quick to signal his agreement with Mr. Bush. “The President,” Mr. Lieberman noted in a public statement, “got it exactly right.” (LAT)
That comment was the nail in the coffin of Mr. Lieberman’s Yale degree, Mr. Levin noted. “I’ve looked back at some of the President’s history class term papers and can say with confidence that he couldn’t even tell you what century World War II was fought in. This is not a man who is qualified to give history lessons, much less offer counsel on the ways of diplomacy.”
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