Obama Is Embraced at Annapolis
By SHERYL GAY STOLBERG
nytimes.com
ANNAPOLIS, Md. — Nobody protested President Obama’s commencement address Friday morning at the United States Naval Academy. Nobody told Mr. Obama he was undeserving of an honorary degree. Instead, under a nearly cloudless blue sky, the president was treated to a 21-gun salute, a Blue Angels flyover — and a respite from the controversy that has dogged him at two previous graduation ceremonies.
It was Mr. Obama’s first commencement speech as president to graduates of a military academy — a rite of passage for every commander in chief — and he pledged to harness diplomacy and economic aid alongside military power to defend the nation and provide fighting forces with everything they need to succeed in their missions.
“As long as I am your commander in chief,” Mr. Obama said, “I will only send you into harm’s way when it is absolutely necessary, and with the strategy and the well-defined goals, the equipment and the support that you need to get the job done.”
The 23-minute address came one day after Mr. Obama, in a lengthier speech at the National Archives in Washington, offered a far-reaching defense of his antiterrorism policies, including his decision to close the American military prison at Guantánamo Bay, Cuba. On Friday, he repeated his message that in an age of terrorism, he can both protect Americans from attack and uphold fundamental American values.
As the debate on national security policy proceeds, Mr. Obama said, “we must remember this enduring truth: The values and ideals in those documents are not simply words written into aging parchment; they are the bedrock of our liberty and our security.”
There was a special guest among the 30,000 people who attended the ceremony: Senator John McCain, the Arizona Republican who ran for president against Mr. Obama in 2008, and is a 1958 graduate of the academy. Mr. McCain’s son and namesake, John S. McCain IV, was among those graduating on Friday.
Mr. McCain sat unobtrusively in the audience with his wife, Cindy; an administration official said that out of respect for the McCains’ wishes, the president made no mention of the couple or their son. But when the younger Mr. McCain was called to the podium to receive his diploma, there was a huge roar from the crowd, and Mr. Obama spent an extra few moments with him, and gave him an enthusiastic couple of claps on the shoulder.
This has been a spring of graduation drama for Mr. Obama. Arizona State University provoked a national furor by declining to give him an honorary degree, reasoning that “his body of work is yet to come.” The president, in his speech there, gamely agreed.
At Notre Dame, abortion opponents boycotted Mr. Obama’s speech. Mr. Obama did not duck the issue, but rather embraced it with a call for greater understanding, “open hearts, open mind, fair-minded words” in the abortion debate.
There was no such controversy here in Annapolis, where midshipmen are more apt to say “Yes, sir” than to protest. Clad in sparkling summer dress whites, the graduates greeted their new commander in chief with hoots, hollers and raucous applause. Mr. Obama, in return, praised them for the path they had chosen — a notable contrast, he suggested, to the pursuit of wealth that helped foster the current economic crisis.
“These Americans have embraced the virtues that we need most right now: self-discipline over self-interest; work over comfort; and character over celebrity,” the president said. “After an era when so many institutions and individuals have acted with such greed and recklessness, it’s no wonder that our military remains the most trusted institution in our nation.”
When all the diplomas had been handed out, the 2009 class president, Ensign Andrew R. Poulin, summoned Mr. Obama back to the podium to present him with a black flight jacket emblazoned on the back with gold block letters that read “commander in chief.”
“It even has pockets for your Blackberry, and you will look sharp on the basketball court with this, sir,” Ensign Poulin said.
Mr. Obama took off his blue suit coat, slipped on the jacket, and flashed the graduates a thumbs up.
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