How will President Obama handle his moment “on the spot” in South Bend?

I’m curious to hear for myself just how Barack Obama chooses to address the controversy that has sprung up among some Catholics (the ones who can’t stand the fact that not all Catholics think just like them about everything) with regards to the president giving the commencement address at Notre Dame.

Because I’m almost afraid he’s going to try to use humor to deflect the hostility that some people attending the graduation ceremonies Sunday will feel toward his presence.

WHEN IT COMES to abortion, it’s the ultimate issue where some people just can’t take a joke.

It reminds me of Obama himself during the presidential campaign when he appeared before a very conservative crowd at the Saddleback Church.

You remember.

Obama took what was a blunt question meant to put him on the spot and make him squirm because of his belief that it is a woman’s own business if she decides to terminate a pregnancy and tried to laugh it off by saying that the answer to the question was “above my pay grade.”

AS MUCH AS I thought Pastor Rick Warren’s question was a cheap shot, I thought Obama deserved all the criticism he received for giving such a lame answer.

I hope Obama learned from that, and doesn’t try to give us an encore when he speaks at the Catholic university near South Bend, Ind.

For Obama’s press secretary told reporter-types in Washington on Friday that Obama plans to mention the fact that some people are opposed to his presence in Indiana because of the fact that the Catholic Church officially opposes the notion that abortion can be legal.

But press secretary Robert Gibbs also said that Obama is fully cognizant of the fact that the parents from across the nation and around the globe who make the trip to the Notre Dame campus for the commencement ceremony are going there primarily to see the end result of all those tuition payments they made in recent years – a sibling with an education and a degree to show for it.

AS THINGS STAND now, the big buffoon this week in South Bend is conservative commentator Alan Keyes (who keeps getting arrested during protests against Obama’s presence). I hope the president doesn’t feel the need to try to upstage him.

So perhaps Obama will have enough sense not to turn the event into a one-liner that gives Rush Limbaugh an audio snippet to mock for weeks on end. Of course, I would guess that Limbaugh will find a way to mock anything Obama says about any issue, regardless of what Obama says.

I hope whatever he has to say comes right at the beginning, and that he quickly moves on to trying to give an inspirational message to the students who now are trying to find work.

My guess is that he’ll probably try to say something about how the greatness of the American Way of life includes the right to disagree with people.

THAT WOULD BE the way I’d try to handle such a situation. Put the critics who think you have no business setting foot on campus look incredibly foolish and small-minded for their point of view – which admittedly is a foolish and small-minded view to have.

Anything else is risky, because the issue at hand is abortion.

Take the latest Gallup Organization poll, which tried to find out what the nation thinks these days about abortion.

The survey is being spun on the idea that a majority of the nation (or at least those surveyed) prefers to think of themselves with the label “pro-life” rather than “pro-choice.”

FIFTY-ONE PERCENT LIKE the “pro-life” label, while 42 percent accept “pro-choice.” (Personally, I hate both of those labels because they’re both inaccurate, but that is an issue to contemplate for a different day). But I always thought the proper way to view the abortion split was to accept that the people who get most worked up over the issue are the extremes, and that the bulk are more ambivalent.

Twenty-three percent of people are the ones who want to criminalize the issue, while 22 percent oppose any effort to restrict it, while 53 percent are the ones who think that there are instances when a woman is justified in ending her pregnancy (even if they think there are other times when it should not be permitted).

So the trick isn’t to think that Obama is going to sway anyone’s opinion about the abortion issue when he speaks on Sunday.

In fact, there’s a good chance that the students partaking in the ceremony will find some “minor” moment that sticks in their memory about their graduation ceremony.

I REMEMBER WHEN then-first lady Hillary Clinton gave the commencement speech at the University of Illinois in Urbana some years ago, only to have the most sincere moment of student emotion come when they realized that one of the other people included in the ceremony was a musician who had written much of the music used on the “Sesame Street” television show.

So who has the potential to upstage Obama, thereby giving people a moment to truly cherish, and something to inspire a moment of regret for those students who choose to boycott Sunday’s ceremony that caused them to miss a magic moment?

-30-

EDITOR'S NOTE: Nobody should make the mistake of thinking that all Catholics are in (http://voices.washingtonpost.com/44/2009/05/15/obama_at_notre_dame_catholics.html?wprss=44) agreement against Barack Obama when it comes to this so-called controversy.

Don't they realize that Daley-speak could give them one of the most unusual commencement speech experiences ever?

I have always thought of Northwestern University types as a batch of whiny fools from out-of-town whom we Chicagoans are forced to endure in our midst. Now, I have the bit of evidence that proves my point.

It seems the students of the school in suburban Evanston (who like to think they attend college in the nitty-gritty, urban atmosphere of Chicago) are upset that their graduation ceremony on June 20 will have the ultimate face of Chicago present – Hizzoner Jr.

RICHARD M. DALEY will give the commencement address, and will be the recipient of an honorary doctor of laws degree. His presence is meant to provide the 2008 graduation events with its unique touch.

Northwestern University officials actually thought their announcement would garner some positive press, since Daley is not the type who needs to feed his ego by seeking out commencement speeches (unlike someone like television personality Tavis Smiley, who is doing at least four graduation speeches this spring).

But all they got were complaints from students who feel that Daley is not worthy of their time.

One student who posted a message on the website of the Daily Northwestern student newspaper went so far as to say that Daley does not deserve to speak to them because he only attended DePaul University – which makes him not that bright. Another student sent his complaints by e-mail to university President Henry Beinen, who shot back a response that the student should “grow up.”

I HAVE TO agree.

It dismays me that a new group of students is going into the world who did their college time so close to Chicago, yet seem to have no comprehension of just what it was they experienced while living here.

Daley is a national figure, both because of his family’s political legacy (his father and brothers) and because of the size of his home city (just under 3 million people, and the focus of more than 8-million person metropolitan area).

Daley has responsibilities that would extend beyond those of governors of small and mid-sized states. In fact, some people would argue that the reason Democratic politics in Illinois is in such disarray these days is because our governor doesn’t like the fact that Daley is more powerful than he is.

DALEY FALLS INTO the same category of politicos as the nationally known mayors of New York and Los Angeles.

Yet I don’t hear the student bodies of the University of Pennsylvania (where New York Mayor Michael Bloomberg is giving the commencement speech this year) or Occidental College (where Los Angeles Mayor Antonio Villaraigosa will speak) claiming their educational experiences will be sullied because all they got was a mayor.

Now some of the students said that, if they had to get a political person, they would have preferred someone of the stature of Sen. Barack Obama, D-Ill. That is just a case of students being clueless about the realities of politics.

Obama’s career advanced beyond the realm of representing Hyde Park in the Illinois Legislature because he made his ties to the political power of Daley and the Democratic organization in Chicago. In the world of politics, Daley is bigger than Obama until the day Obama takes the oath of office as president.

THEN, DALEY’S REPUTATION will grow even further nationally because he will be able to claim he “made” Obama into a nationally worthy figure.

Even if it’s not really true, it will be what people across the country will want to believe, particularly those who want to smear Obama with Daley because they believe the mayor represents everything that is wrong with politics in the United States.

There’s also the fact that Obama doesn’t appear to be doing any commencement speeches this year (running against John McCain is keeping him busy). But he has done four such speeches since becoming a U.S. senator, including the Northwestern address of 2006.

These Northwestern geeks apparently view Obama as their personal motivational speaker. It’s a good thing that Northwestern looked to someone else.

NOW I WILL be the first to admit that the thought of Daley giving a speech makes me chuckle a bit. He is far from a classic public speaker. There will be those who will giggle at the way he exits a sentence from a different grammatical universe than he entered it.

But his blunt-spoken earthiness can be reassuring. It tends to make you think this man is speaking the truth – even when he’s engaging in political double-talk. It is a significant part of the man’s appeal to Chicago voters during the past two decades.

What I’m saying is that the man who once told a gathering of reporters that, “you’d want to know if there’s a rat in your sandwich” when asked about citywide crackdowns on unsanitary restaurants is likely to come up with a good line or two – something that will be remembered.

It’s bound to be more memorable than the other local politico who gave a commencement speech – Illinois Attorney General Lisa Madigan spoke to the graduates of Chicago-Kent College of Law.

IF ANYTHING, WHAT a student should want from their commencement speaker is a quotable line that will help break up what otherwise is a dreadful routine of pomp and ceremony. Somebody with the potential to be funny is better than someone deadly serious.

I should know.

I still remember by own graduation from Illinois Wesleyan University in 1987. After four years of academia, Dr. Robert Jay Lifton gave me his advice. He chose to speak on the subject of “Our Nuclear Age – a Time of Hope.”

Was it awful! He spoke in a monotone and, to this day, I cannot remember a single line of what he said. In fact, my only real memories were looking over at my family and seeing my grandmother literally asleep, and my stepmother’s father spending the rest of the day ragging on me for making him have to sit through such a dreadful speaker.

DALEY IS NOT the classic orator. But he will give the Northwestern kids a memory they won’t forget, even if they still have a buzz going from the wild partying they did the night before commencement.

Besides, it could be worse. The university could have followed the lead of many colleges in picking out an alumnus who has “made good.” Northwestern could have sought a local politico by picking Blagojevich to speak (he received his bachelor’s degree from there in 1979).

His nasally tone and lack of anything significant to say would be dreadful to sit through, as I’m sure the graduating students at the University of Tampa (where Blagojevich also attended for a couple of years) who endured his commencement speech on May 10 would testify to.

-30-

EDITOR’S NOTES: Northwestern U. types are miffed they didn’t get a Hollywood celebrity to speak at their graduation (http://media.www.dailynorthwestern.com/media/storage/paper853/news/2008/05/28/Campus/Chicago.Mayor.Richard.Daley.To.Speak.At.Commencement-3375913.shtml?reffeature=recentlycommentedstoriestab). Perhaps they’d prefer the Law School’s commencement speaker?

The Dalai Lama (http://www.chicagotribune.com/business/content/education/chi-daley-northwesternmay29,0,1022702.story) would have been a catch.

So who is speaking at which college for the honor and glory of receiving (http://chronicle.com/free/speakers/?handler=search&Last_Name=&Institution=&State=&order=&year=2008) an honorary degree?

I realize he was academically distinguished, but Robert Jay Lifton managed to leave a (http://globetrotter.berkeley.edu/people/Lifton/lifton-con0.html) number of students under-whelmed when he gave a commencement address in 1987.