This is a hilarious conversation:
President Barack Obama says Arizona State University officials aren't the only ones who think he needs to accomplish more to earn an honorary degree.
Add his wife Michelle to that list.
"I come here not to dispute the suggestion that I haven't yet achieved enough in my life," Obama said in a commencement speech Wednesday. With a smile he added: "First of all, Michelle (Obama) concurs with that assessment. She has a long list of things that I have not yet done waiting for me when I get home."
"But more than that I come to embrace the notion that I haven't done enough in my life. I heartily concur. I come to affirm 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."
Though he's superficially joking, the nature of the joke suggests that he still has a chip on his shoulder. He's the reductio ad absurdum of the ethos of the value system created by the college application process in the past generation: programmed to pursue "achievement," defined as padding the resume, he can never be satiated.
Comments