Andrew Card Booed at UMass

[pab]

Posted: 5/26/07 at 10:52am

AMHERST, Mass. — President Bush's former chief of staff Andrew Card was loudly booed by hundreds of students and faculty members as he rose to accept an honorary degree at the University of Massachusetts on Friday.

The boos and catcalls _ including those from faculty members who stood onstage with Card _ drowned out Provost Charlena Seymour's remarks as she awarded the honorary doctorate in public service. Protesters claim Card lied to the American people in the early days of the Iraq war and should not have been honored at the graduate student commencement.

Card smiled slightly while Seymour spoke and raised his hand in thanks, then sat down without speaking.

Afterward he ignored a reporter's question about the protesters. "It was a great honor and a privilege to be here," he said.

The protests were mainly contained to an area in the back of the campus arena, though many of the faculty members onstage joined the three- to four- minute outburst.

One faculty member onstage held a sign: "Card _ no honor, no degree." Another sign said, "War criminals go home."
Former Bush Aide Card Is Booed at UMass

[LionessInWinter]

Posted: 5/26/07 at 11:08am

I'm a little bit surprised he went.

Quite a number of faculty and students protested after the announcement regarding him receiving this honorary degree. When the protests came up, he apparently contacted a couple of unhappy faculty members and this link has their editorial about it.


Editorial re: Andrew Card

[billygoatgirl300]

Posted: 5/26/07 at 11:41am

I live in Amherst and was at the UMass campus yesterday. I saw tons of people walking around with signs of Cards name with a line across it. I'm still trying to understand why he got a degree.

[DG]

Posted: 5/26/07 at 11:51am

Hopefully, more and more people will be willing to voice their disapproval of these criminals, in whatever setting they appear.

[Mr. Tuttle]

Posted: 5/26/07 at 5:30pm

U of M has been making loads of bad mistakes lately. Not suprising that this is just one of their latest.

[TheatreDiva90016]

Posted: 5/26/07 at 6:12pm

BRILLIANT editorial!

What was this guy thinking?!

[LionessInWinter]

Posted: 5/26/07 at 10:32pm

I knew some video had to pop up somewhere. WOW.
The first bit is the graduates walking in with the signs of Card's name with the lines through, like Billygoatgirl mentioned, attached to their gowns and caps.
At about the 2:15min mark, there's a shot of the stage just before Card is introduced. No one up there is holding anything that we can see, but as soon as he is introduced...it's amazing how many signs people were holding not just in the audience, but onstage!
That guy's middle name is Hubris. That took some balls to get up there, and not in a good way.
Honor Graduates not Andrew Card