Presidential Commencement Address (Reinterpreted)
It's been a while since I've reinterpreted a presidential speech, and his address at the Naval Academy on May 30th was too good to resist.
For all of you snarky, wonderful people on my flist who have graduated this year from high school and college--this one's for you.
PRESIDENT: Thanks for the warm welcome. I’m not sure the wave was strictly necessary, but since you’re Naval Academy grads, I’ll let it pass. Secretary, Admiral, General, Admiral, Admiral, Captain, Colonel, Governor, Congressman-God, could we fit a few more people up here, do you think?-faculty, guests, parents, family, friends, random strangers just wandering through Annapolis, and you, the graduating midshipmen about to be deployed around the world who this speech is allegedly about but isn’t really, thanks for letting me be here.
I’m totally stoked to be standing here in front of the future leaders of the Navy and Marine Corps, and, well, the other people who graduate with them. To prove I’m just one of the guys, now I’ll make a lot of in-jokes about daily life here at the Academy that I’ve never experienced and don’t understand. Staubach Day? Having your parking tickets scraped? Climbing Herndon Monument? I hope these apply to your school, cause I’ll be damned if I know what I’m talking about.
A lot has changed since your plebe year. See? I know to call you plebes! I totally earned that flight jacket, bitches. Anyway, back then Navy football totally blew. You were the opposite of undefeated. You were 0-10. And then I came and gave the graduation speech and you were so inspired by my mad leadership skills that you all signed up for football in the hopes of getting injured and not having to fulfill your obligations to the military. Or you got good. Whatever.
This is the part of the speech where it becomes less about you, the graduates, and more about me, the President giving a defense speech. Make yourselves comfy. So there was 9/11. It took me four paragraphs to get to it-a new record for me! So there were these bad guys, and they launched us into this global war. They are all about the murder and the power and the suicide bombings, and don’t respond to negotiations, concessions, or appeals to reason. Not that we’ve tried that, but you know what I mean. And obviously, in a war you’ll have winners and losers. And, equally obviously, because I’m speaking at the US Naval Academy, I’m not going to talk about possible defeat, or a Cold War-type scenario where this becomes the standard foreign policy paradigm for the next twenty years, or anything like that. It’s all about victory, baby. And I totally know what paradigm means. It was in my Word-of-the Day calendar.
Now I’m going to lay out our general strategery-eh, strategy-that’s going to make us win the war on terror, OMG, while also restructuring the military and learning how to make a quiche that won’t collapse when you take it out of the oven. Boeing’s put billions of tax dollars into that last question, just in case you were wondering. Our nation is pursuing a clear strategy on the war on terrorism: we use every available tool to disrupt terrorists, then tell the Saudis and the Pakistanis and they ignore our information. Works like a charm every time. We’ve even decided to deny terrorists sanctuary in the United States. The Department of Homeland Security, no longer burdened by keeping the color-coded terror alert, has been going to town with poster board and watercolors, painting giant “No Terrorists” signs for the borders with Canada and Mexico and for every airport in the US. I think it’s kinda dumb, but I wasn’t a fan of the DHS to begin with and this keeps ‘em busy, so fuck it. We’re using all elements of national power to deny terrorists access to weapons of mass destruction, except for the part where Russia doesn’t know where all of theirs are, we can’t find the ones in Iraq, and don’t really know what’s going on in Syria, Iran or North Korea. And we’re stopping terrorists from winning ideological victories in the Middle East by blowing the shit out of Iraq. That’s totally been working to bring about long-term peace and prosperity. Stop laughing. We understand that free nations don’t support terrorists or invade their neighbors. Stop. Laughing. We understand that to make the world more secure, we will advance the cause of liberty through force of arms if necessary.
Thanks to the men and women in the US military, this strategy is kinda working. We’ve removed brutal governments in Kabul and Baghdad, forcing them to flee into the hills where they are conspiring to kill us all as we stand here, but that’s beside the point, really. We helped launch Afghanistan and Iraq onto the path of freedom, using the giant Trebuchet of Liberty. They are currently hanging in the Air of Ungratefulness and will probably bounce a couple times on the Gravel of Ridiculously Fixed Elections, but that’s to be expected. It’s inspiring other nations around the world to look a little more closely at their petty dictators and think, “hell, we can do better than this.” Of course we don’t mean Saudi Arabia. We love their petty dictators, and look forward to working with them for the next 100 years, or until we figure out how to make a car that runs on chewing gum.
And to stop the spread of WMDs, we convinced Libya to stop being such a bad guy. They’d kinda been a non-player for the last decade or so, but we’ll take our victories where we can and Iran and North Korea frankly scare the shit out of me. That’ll be your problem, future leaders of the military, and I’ll leave it to you. We’ve gone after al Qaeda and other terrorist networks, disrupting their communications, training, racquetball practice and occasionally their financing. They’re totally scared of us, and it’s all because the US military totally r0xx0rs, or however you young people say it.
And we’ll stay on their trail. As your football team has learned, the best defense is a good offense, and we’ll just go right ahead blowing the shit out anyone who looks at us crosswise. For liberty and justice, naturally. We’ve caught and killed-err, “brought to justice” hundreds of members of al Qaeda, and have stopped crazy insurgents in Iraq. And that’s all thanks to you, the next group of military men and women to ship off to Iraq. Around the country, Americans are super grateful. You can tell by all the yellow ribbons on the back of their gas-guzzling SUVs as they go about their everyday lives ignoring what military families go through.
Difficult and dangerous work remains. Suicide bombers have targeted innocent men, women, and children (and US military folks, but I’m not going to say so). And men and women who sat in desks at this Academy only four years ago are doing that difficult and dangerous work. I’ll give you four examples of totally awesome Academy grads who are out there kicking ass and taking names in Iraq and Afghanistan. But I’m not going to mention any of the women because they are delicate flowers who shouldn’t be on the front lines.
The Class of 2001 has been shipped off to war for the last four years and have become battle-hardened Navy and Marine officers. They are serving their country with honor and distinction and you’ll soon be joining them, mwah ha ha. I mean, it’ll be great. You’ll do fine.
Anyway, back to the defense part of my speech. In the 21st Century, we have two separate missions: we need to defeat terrorism AND find a shampoo that leaves hair soft and luxurious without leaving a nasty buildup. Oh, I mean, transforming the military into a better, more cost-effective service.
The lessons of September 11th were clear: that even with ample warnings, we might miss the signs of a huge terrorist threat. I mean, our enemies can attack at any time. To meet these threats, we need to make our forces faster, lighter, more agile, and more lethal. Well, except for the Army, which refuses to listen to this and continues buying tanks that are too heavy to put on airplanes.
Since taking office, my administration has invested $16 billion to build transformational military capabilities. Considering that my administration has spent more than a trillion bucks on the military and related agencies, that’s not saying much, but in our defense (hee), we’ve been a little sidetracked. We’ve requested an additional $78 billion for transforming stuff, and have invested $240 billion in research and development, divided equally between Boeing, Lockheed-Martin, Northrop/Grummand and Halliburton. They promise to do the best they can with minimal cost overruns, and managed to say it with straight faces, so I’ll bet they’ll be fine. I promise, as long as I am President and you don’t ask for anything unreasonable like bulletproof Humvees or flak jackets, I’ll provide you with the best equipment ever.
We’ve seen that the power of technology can totally kick our enemies’ asses. In 1991, in the first Gulf War, aircraft taking off from carriers could blow up 200 things a day. In this second Gulf War, aircraft taking off from carriers can blow up more than 600 things a day. And we’re getting more precise. The Hellfire missile, for instance, can target on a specific floor of a building and blow the absolute shit out of it. It can go around corners and into caves and down into bunkers and it’s going to be the last thing a lot of terrorists see. It’s so cool.
In war, as with most things in life, the guy with the best toys wins. And our toys are so much more expensive, and therefore better than everyone else’s toys. In the years to come, we’ll have even more advanced stuff-we’ll have unmanned submarines, and destroyers that can shoot down ballistic missiles and subs that will run silently. We’re working on joint sea bases instead of having to take ships all the way to land.
Technology changes war in other ways. Remember how great it was when the B-52s were dropping bombs from, like, 2 miles up over Afghanistan and the Afghanistan military couldn’t hit them with anything in their arsenal? War is better with fewer casualties. But I guess I don’t have to tell you all that, do I?
And because this is the 21st Century and we don’t have to worry about the Soviets coming across to shop at the Fulda Gap, we have the chance to restructure and redeploy thousands and thousands of military personnel. We’ll bring home 60,000 to 70,000 personnel who are currently stationed overseas. Don’t think I mean Iraq. I mean Germany and England and we’ll drag those guys out of the Biergartens in Heidelberg if we have to use cattle prods.
This also means restructuring bases at home. I hope none of you were setting your hopes on a deployment to Maine or Rhode Island because those bases are on our latest list of places scheduled to disappear. It’s all for the best, really, screaming Congressmen, Senators, and locally employed voters aside. With the money that will be thrown at the communities in grants, most of ‘em will be fine. Well, other than Rapid City, South Dakota, which will dry up and blow away if Ellsworth closes, but that’s an Air Force base and not your problem. Bottom line-it’ll save us less money than what I’m asking the Congress for in transformation funding, but $48 billion in savings over 20 years is a lot of money in non-Defense Department circles.
Transformation requires creativity and innovation, and that’s something that you, the graduates of the class of 2005-see, it’s about you again!-will be bringing with you as you join the officer corps. Remember, though, that most people, especially in the military, aren’t really all about the change, and so most of ‘em won’t be especially excited to have some 20-year-old kid telling them how to do things better. Sucks to be you. Those who make changes are those who are remembered in history. Well, some of them are, anyway.
The future belongs to freedom; in the last 18 months Central Asia has been going nuts with the freedom. America is standing with these reformers-well, maybe not the ones in Uzbekistan yet because we need the base-because Liberty is Good. With this new restructuring, you’ll all have the fabulous opportunity to live in Central Asia and the Middle East rather than Europe. Learn to enjoy vodka.
Some of our military men and women have been killed in the line of duty, and many more have come back injured. We’re all about their sacrifice, and will honor yours, should you have to make it. You’re about to become a part of the greatest force of freedom in the history of the world, if we do say so ourselves. In the years ahead, you will see dramatic changes, but the one thing that won’t change is the character of the men and women who wear the uniform of the US military, certain practices in Abu Gharib and Gitmo prisons aside.
Your mission is necessary and noble. Your weapons will be kickass, your enemies way scarier than anything the guys heading to the Spanish-American War were up against. Thanks for deciding to serve. Now off you go. Congrats. Don’t get hurt.
The actual, non-snarky version of the speech can be found here.
For all of you snarky, wonderful people on my flist who have graduated this year from high school and college--this one's for you.
PRESIDENT: Thanks for the warm welcome. I’m not sure the wave was strictly necessary, but since you’re Naval Academy grads, I’ll let it pass. Secretary, Admiral, General, Admiral, Admiral, Captain, Colonel, Governor, Congressman-God, could we fit a few more people up here, do you think?-faculty, guests, parents, family, friends, random strangers just wandering through Annapolis, and you, the graduating midshipmen about to be deployed around the world who this speech is allegedly about but isn’t really, thanks for letting me be here.
I’m totally stoked to be standing here in front of the future leaders of the Navy and Marine Corps, and, well, the other people who graduate with them. To prove I’m just one of the guys, now I’ll make a lot of in-jokes about daily life here at the Academy that I’ve never experienced and don’t understand. Staubach Day? Having your parking tickets scraped? Climbing Herndon Monument? I hope these apply to your school, cause I’ll be damned if I know what I’m talking about.
A lot has changed since your plebe year. See? I know to call you plebes! I totally earned that flight jacket, bitches. Anyway, back then Navy football totally blew. You were the opposite of undefeated. You were 0-10. And then I came and gave the graduation speech and you were so inspired by my mad leadership skills that you all signed up for football in the hopes of getting injured and not having to fulfill your obligations to the military. Or you got good. Whatever.
This is the part of the speech where it becomes less about you, the graduates, and more about me, the President giving a defense speech. Make yourselves comfy. So there was 9/11. It took me four paragraphs to get to it-a new record for me! So there were these bad guys, and they launched us into this global war. They are all about the murder and the power and the suicide bombings, and don’t respond to negotiations, concessions, or appeals to reason. Not that we’ve tried that, but you know what I mean. And obviously, in a war you’ll have winners and losers. And, equally obviously, because I’m speaking at the US Naval Academy, I’m not going to talk about possible defeat, or a Cold War-type scenario where this becomes the standard foreign policy paradigm for the next twenty years, or anything like that. It’s all about victory, baby. And I totally know what paradigm means. It was in my Word-of-the Day calendar.
Now I’m going to lay out our general strategery-eh, strategy-that’s going to make us win the war on terror, OMG, while also restructuring the military and learning how to make a quiche that won’t collapse when you take it out of the oven. Boeing’s put billions of tax dollars into that last question, just in case you were wondering. Our nation is pursuing a clear strategy on the war on terrorism: we use every available tool to disrupt terrorists, then tell the Saudis and the Pakistanis and they ignore our information. Works like a charm every time. We’ve even decided to deny terrorists sanctuary in the United States. The Department of Homeland Security, no longer burdened by keeping the color-coded terror alert, has been going to town with poster board and watercolors, painting giant “No Terrorists” signs for the borders with Canada and Mexico and for every airport in the US. I think it’s kinda dumb, but I wasn’t a fan of the DHS to begin with and this keeps ‘em busy, so fuck it. We’re using all elements of national power to deny terrorists access to weapons of mass destruction, except for the part where Russia doesn’t know where all of theirs are, we can’t find the ones in Iraq, and don’t really know what’s going on in Syria, Iran or North Korea. And we’re stopping terrorists from winning ideological victories in the Middle East by blowing the shit out of Iraq. That’s totally been working to bring about long-term peace and prosperity. Stop laughing. We understand that free nations don’t support terrorists or invade their neighbors. Stop. Laughing. We understand that to make the world more secure, we will advance the cause of liberty through force of arms if necessary.
Thanks to the men and women in the US military, this strategy is kinda working. We’ve removed brutal governments in Kabul and Baghdad, forcing them to flee into the hills where they are conspiring to kill us all as we stand here, but that’s beside the point, really. We helped launch Afghanistan and Iraq onto the path of freedom, using the giant Trebuchet of Liberty. They are currently hanging in the Air of Ungratefulness and will probably bounce a couple times on the Gravel of Ridiculously Fixed Elections, but that’s to be expected. It’s inspiring other nations around the world to look a little more closely at their petty dictators and think, “hell, we can do better than this.” Of course we don’t mean Saudi Arabia. We love their petty dictators, and look forward to working with them for the next 100 years, or until we figure out how to make a car that runs on chewing gum.
And to stop the spread of WMDs, we convinced Libya to stop being such a bad guy. They’d kinda been a non-player for the last decade or so, but we’ll take our victories where we can and Iran and North Korea frankly scare the shit out of me. That’ll be your problem, future leaders of the military, and I’ll leave it to you. We’ve gone after al Qaeda and other terrorist networks, disrupting their communications, training, racquetball practice and occasionally their financing. They’re totally scared of us, and it’s all because the US military totally r0xx0rs, or however you young people say it.
And we’ll stay on their trail. As your football team has learned, the best defense is a good offense, and we’ll just go right ahead blowing the shit out anyone who looks at us crosswise. For liberty and justice, naturally. We’ve caught and killed-err, “brought to justice” hundreds of members of al Qaeda, and have stopped crazy insurgents in Iraq. And that’s all thanks to you, the next group of military men and women to ship off to Iraq. Around the country, Americans are super grateful. You can tell by all the yellow ribbons on the back of their gas-guzzling SUVs as they go about their everyday lives ignoring what military families go through.
Difficult and dangerous work remains. Suicide bombers have targeted innocent men, women, and children (and US military folks, but I’m not going to say so). And men and women who sat in desks at this Academy only four years ago are doing that difficult and dangerous work. I’ll give you four examples of totally awesome Academy grads who are out there kicking ass and taking names in Iraq and Afghanistan. But I’m not going to mention any of the women because they are delicate flowers who shouldn’t be on the front lines.
The Class of 2001 has been shipped off to war for the last four years and have become battle-hardened Navy and Marine officers. They are serving their country with honor and distinction and you’ll soon be joining them, mwah ha ha. I mean, it’ll be great. You’ll do fine.
Anyway, back to the defense part of my speech. In the 21st Century, we have two separate missions: we need to defeat terrorism AND find a shampoo that leaves hair soft and luxurious without leaving a nasty buildup. Oh, I mean, transforming the military into a better, more cost-effective service.
The lessons of September 11th were clear: that even with ample warnings, we might miss the signs of a huge terrorist threat. I mean, our enemies can attack at any time. To meet these threats, we need to make our forces faster, lighter, more agile, and more lethal. Well, except for the Army, which refuses to listen to this and continues buying tanks that are too heavy to put on airplanes.
Since taking office, my administration has invested $16 billion to build transformational military capabilities. Considering that my administration has spent more than a trillion bucks on the military and related agencies, that’s not saying much, but in our defense (hee), we’ve been a little sidetracked. We’ve requested an additional $78 billion for transforming stuff, and have invested $240 billion in research and development, divided equally between Boeing, Lockheed-Martin, Northrop/Grummand and Halliburton. They promise to do the best they can with minimal cost overruns, and managed to say it with straight faces, so I’ll bet they’ll be fine. I promise, as long as I am President and you don’t ask for anything unreasonable like bulletproof Humvees or flak jackets, I’ll provide you with the best equipment ever.
We’ve seen that the power of technology can totally kick our enemies’ asses. In 1991, in the first Gulf War, aircraft taking off from carriers could blow up 200 things a day. In this second Gulf War, aircraft taking off from carriers can blow up more than 600 things a day. And we’re getting more precise. The Hellfire missile, for instance, can target on a specific floor of a building and blow the absolute shit out of it. It can go around corners and into caves and down into bunkers and it’s going to be the last thing a lot of terrorists see. It’s so cool.
In war, as with most things in life, the guy with the best toys wins. And our toys are so much more expensive, and therefore better than everyone else’s toys. In the years to come, we’ll have even more advanced stuff-we’ll have unmanned submarines, and destroyers that can shoot down ballistic missiles and subs that will run silently. We’re working on joint sea bases instead of having to take ships all the way to land.
Technology changes war in other ways. Remember how great it was when the B-52s were dropping bombs from, like, 2 miles up over Afghanistan and the Afghanistan military couldn’t hit them with anything in their arsenal? War is better with fewer casualties. But I guess I don’t have to tell you all that, do I?
And because this is the 21st Century and we don’t have to worry about the Soviets coming across to shop at the Fulda Gap, we have the chance to restructure and redeploy thousands and thousands of military personnel. We’ll bring home 60,000 to 70,000 personnel who are currently stationed overseas. Don’t think I mean Iraq. I mean Germany and England and we’ll drag those guys out of the Biergartens in Heidelberg if we have to use cattle prods.
This also means restructuring bases at home. I hope none of you were setting your hopes on a deployment to Maine or Rhode Island because those bases are on our latest list of places scheduled to disappear. It’s all for the best, really, screaming Congressmen, Senators, and locally employed voters aside. With the money that will be thrown at the communities in grants, most of ‘em will be fine. Well, other than Rapid City, South Dakota, which will dry up and blow away if Ellsworth closes, but that’s an Air Force base and not your problem. Bottom line-it’ll save us less money than what I’m asking the Congress for in transformation funding, but $48 billion in savings over 20 years is a lot of money in non-Defense Department circles.
Transformation requires creativity and innovation, and that’s something that you, the graduates of the class of 2005-see, it’s about you again!-will be bringing with you as you join the officer corps. Remember, though, that most people, especially in the military, aren’t really all about the change, and so most of ‘em won’t be especially excited to have some 20-year-old kid telling them how to do things better. Sucks to be you. Those who make changes are those who are remembered in history. Well, some of them are, anyway.
The future belongs to freedom; in the last 18 months Central Asia has been going nuts with the freedom. America is standing with these reformers-well, maybe not the ones in Uzbekistan yet because we need the base-because Liberty is Good. With this new restructuring, you’ll all have the fabulous opportunity to live in Central Asia and the Middle East rather than Europe. Learn to enjoy vodka.
Some of our military men and women have been killed in the line of duty, and many more have come back injured. We’re all about their sacrifice, and will honor yours, should you have to make it. You’re about to become a part of the greatest force of freedom in the history of the world, if we do say so ourselves. In the years ahead, you will see dramatic changes, but the one thing that won’t change is the character of the men and women who wear the uniform of the US military, certain practices in Abu Gharib and Gitmo prisons aside.
Your mission is necessary and noble. Your weapons will be kickass, your enemies way scarier than anything the guys heading to the Spanish-American War were up against. Thanks for deciding to serve. Now off you go. Congrats. Don’t get hurt.
The actual, non-snarky version of the speech can be found here.