President Obama Turns Lemons to Lemonade

     

      Okay, so its not Water to Wine.  But Lemonade was good for what he was given; which were a bunch of bitter lemons.

                                                      

     Although I think he should have added some Vodka and a bit of Blue Curraco and made an Electric Lemonade, Which has been around longer but not as groovy as Disco Lemonade. But if he wanted to: I bet he could....He's that cool folks. 

 

     All talk of Sex and Candy and the people who love both aside.  I am writing about President Obama's Arizona State University commencement speech. I'm attending college online at University of Phoenix. In class today(COM 140) we had to pick a persuasive speech that moved us, give our opinion on whether or not it would be effective if were only the written word. And site links: If there were any.

 

    Being an Arizona Resident I wrote about the President's Address to the graduating class of ASU.

 This follows below:

 

I think that the most important way to sway someone; be they a multitude or a single entity, is geniality.  It’s like my mother used to say “you can attract more bees with honey than with buttermilk”. This axiom is true in public speaking and in life.

                The example I will cite is Barrack Obama’s Arizona State University Commencement. This means a lot to me because I am from Arizona and I know that ASU had said a few weeks ago that President Obama does not deserve an honorary Degree because; in their eyes, his “body of work” was not sufficient enough for the standards of ASU.   I saw it live at my gym on wide screen; It was broadcast live on all the local channels. Although a lot of this was possibly “sour grapes” from a Red-State that is still singing the Blues because their candidate lost. President Obama walked into the lion’s den, much like the biblical Daniel, and swayed the crowd to love him.  You may ask “how”: by poking fun of the scandal itself. By making light of what, to a lot of people, an unforgivable slight.

                While watching this, I heard people around me, moved by his words: several of these were currently ASU students. I heard one guy say that he was “ashamed of the school and its stupidity”.  President Obama said:

 

       “I come to embrace the notion that I haven’t done enough in my life. I heartily concur. I come to confirm that one’s title, even a title like president of the United States, says very little about how well one’s life has been led — and that no matter how much you’ve done, or how successful you’ve been, there’s always more to do, always more to learn and always more to achieve”.

 

       Effectively turning the lemons served him into

 

Lemonade, and winning over the Graduating Class,

 

 Faculty, and possibly Arizonians who would not have

 

gone to see him otherwise, through the rhythm of his 

 

speaking and his body language: such as the way that 

 

he always holds his hands open which I find to be

 

 symbolic of his openness. I think that while the speech  

was beautifly written. Its audiance would have missed 

 

out by not being there in that moment. I think that the 

 

President's handling of a touchy situation should make 

 

ASU Faculty, the 2009 graduating class, and a lot of 

 

Arizonians...take a long, hard look in the mirror.

 

 

                To see more follow the links below to see 

 

the entire speech and witness a master orator in 

 

action: