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College of Southern Nevada
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Congratulations to the graduates. It is an honor to be here today. So I wondered why you would have invited a person who watches politicians for a living rather than a politician to deliver this commencement address.
And then I realized the answer: you actually wanted to hear the truth. A truth unvarnished by spin or sugarcoated with fluff but stripped to the bare realities. A truth not vitiated by fear of being controversial but leavened by a lack of fetters.
And a truth unencumbered by banalities and drivel but enlivened by irreverence and bluntness.
Yes, truth is what I want to talk about today. Surely many of you out there think you have learned a lot of truth in your years here from teachers who were dedicated and wise, resourceful and inspirational. But what you will learn as you leave here is how little you know, how much you still have to learn.
You will find that life truly is an ongoing search for the truth; the truth about what you really want to do with your life, the truth about those around you and most importantly, the truth about yourself.
It is a journey that I believe does not end until the day you die, a constant quest to find meaning and something beyond the quotidian existence we all lead.
When you are asked to give a commencement speech, I suppose it is natural to recall your own college experience. I still remember arriving at Cornell University in the middle of New York state and having no idea what I wanted to do with my life. In fact, my first thought was to be a math major.
My dad is a math genius, a computer science pioneer. And I was pretty good in high school math. So I took calculus my first semester at Cornell and did pretty well. A career in math seemed a real possibility. But then came the second semester of calculus. Suddenly, everything was up in the air.
Literally. There was this stuff in three dimensions. Dot products. Vector products. My eyes glazed over, my head spun. My math career, I realized, was over.
So then I gravitated to English. I had always been a better-than-average writer. And most of the English classes at Cornell were not so hard. All you had to do was read a bunch of books; and I liked to read; and then write a couple of papers. In some of the classes, you didn't even have to read the entire book, either. Such a deal.
But then came the hard part. What in the world do you do with an English degree? Well, you can teach. Or go get a Ph.D. and teach older kids. Or you can -- well, that's about it, unless you wanted to go to some sort of grad school.
By the end of my junior year, I was pretty sure that I wanted to be a writer -- specifically a sportswriter. I was the assistant sports editor of the Cornell Daily Sun and it seemed like the best job in the world: go to sporting events and write about the games. I loved sports so it sounded like a dream job. I decided to go to journalism school because I wasn't ready for the real world; or maybe I just wanted to delay the inevitable.
My dad, though, wasn't so sure. He gave me the "Son, you have to keep your options open" talk and suddenly I found myself scheduled to take the LSATS. Law school?!!!! I didn't want to be a lawyer. Oh, I could argue and debate with the best of them. But being a lawyer didn't appeal to me. Still, I agreed to take the test. And that, too, I still remember vividly.
I didn't take the course or study that much and, in fact, I stayed up until 2 in the morning the night before the test watching an extra-inning baseball game. But how hard could the test be? I remember stumbling into the exam room the next morning at 7 or so. Some proctor at the front was mumbling about how some of the sections were "experimental" and wouldn't count in the overall test score.
Well, I knew I was in trouble an hour or so into the test when I believed every section was experimental. The questions on the LSAT go something like this: three women work in an office. Mary has three marbles in her desk drawer. Joanne takes her break at 10:15. And Lucy takes dictation at 80 words a minute. Please answer the following: What is their boss' name? Right then, I knew my law school hopes were fading. Which was not such a bad thing.
So journalism school it was. and the University of Michigan changed my life. I went there knowing I would be a sportswriter. That's who I was and it was what I wanted to be. Certainty comes easily at your age, as you know. I was going to be the next Red Smith, the legendary sportswriter for the New York Times.
And then it happened. I fell in love at Michigan with hard news ---- real, important stories. Sportswriting suddenly seemed like a lark, something not really serious. Of course I was wrong; some of the best writing and most serious journalism occurs on sports pages. But the desire to cover sports faded for me almost overnight.
My dad once told me that his first job taught him what he didn't want to do. So did mine. I started in journalism covering night police in Las Vegas. I got the job in 1984 after a bizarre interview. I was sitting there with the city editor for about a half-hour. He asked me some perfunctory questions, then presented me with some hypothetical situation. Then he excused himself, ducked into the managing editor's office and returned to declare: we'd like to offer you the job.
Well, my chest puffed out and I felt pretty good about myself. I must have really wowed him in that brief time span. But later, I realized there might be another possibility: what if he had interviewed a lot of people for the privilege of covering night police in Las Vegas and finally found a sucker who might do it?
That indeed, I later learned, was the case as reporters told me of the parade of applicants who had come before me. But I saw it as an opportunity and believe me, while I learned I didn't want to cover murders and robberies for a living, I learned a lot. Trust me: if you can deal with the jerk who mans the night plaza desk at the police station, you can challenge a U. S. Senator.
And so I finally landed on the political beat a few years later, thrown into it when the man covering the campaigns abruptly left a month before the 1986 primary. It was a baptism of fire, but I soon realized I had found my calling. I found it to be the perfect outlet for my personality: I was pretty good at figuring out when people were lying; I was even better at calling them on it and I reveled in exposing them in the pages of the newspaper.
It was a combination of power; the scruffy journalist being on an even par with powerful folks;- and public service -- letting the voters know who was the best candidate. It was an unbeatable synergy, a rush that I still feel today. I only hope that all of you can wake up every day, as I do, believing you have the best job you can imagine, the job you were meant to do.
So what have I learned about truth from overseeing politics for almost 16 years? Many things, great and small, having dealt with many men and women, great and small. Politics, I have found, is a microcosm of real life with one big difference. Most people can have foibles and no one, except maybe those close to them, knows any better. But if you are up on the political stage, you have a spotlight on you that burns brightly and illuminates and heightens everything you do. Some shrink from the glare, some welcome it, some thrive in it, others wither in it. But they are; - be their names George W. Bush or Oscar B. Goodman -; just like you and me, with the same hopes, fears and dreams.
But one reason I love what I do is that I am not bound by the conventions of others. I can write, as I have, that the president of the United States lied to Nevada about the nuclear waste dump, or as I have, that the Mayor of Las Vegas is a self-aggrandizing buffoon. That is the truth, at least as I see it. And to be able to tell the truth, without any restrictions, is one of the pure delights of my life.
But politicians, even those I don't respect, have taught me important things about truth and life. Allow me to impart three of those lessons:
1. This one I learned early. If someone looks at you and declares with all solemnity -- "let me be candid" or "let me be frank" -- get ready. It may not be a whopper, but you are about to be fed a line. If someone has to tell you they are about to be honest with you, chances are they are not.
2. If someone goes out of their way to tell you that he or she is a "consensus-builder" or a "moderate", what that all too often means is they don't believe in much. That's a really bad trait for a politician or any other human being. It is so much better, you will find, to believe in something rather than to be a serial compromiser, which is the disease of all too many elected officials.
3. You know how your mom or dad told you to think before you speak. Well, they were right in principle. But the problem with too many politicians is that they think for something around a nanosecond, then listen to others, listen to others, listen to others, and then, finally, they speak. And what comes out has been so forced through a rhetorical cuisinart, that what emerges is mush. So, yes, think before you speak. But when you finally open your mouth, say what you believe.
What I have learned most from politicians, however, is that all too many of them are afraid. they live in fear of upsetting voters, of angering colleagues, of losing their precious jobs. Hence most of them don't take risks. Most would never sacrifice their political well-being to get something really important done.
Oh, there are exceptions. But most politicians get elected and then start counting the days until they have to go before voters again, living in a bunker and hoping they can regain the privilege to hide again. It is so sad, even pathetic. And it brings me to the most blazing truth I can leave you with today.
Take a risk. Make a sacrifice. Do something you didn't think you could do. Your time will come -- you won't know it until it does, but you will know -- not quite Sydney Carton's "far far better thing" from "A Tale of Two Cities" or even Bogie's "hill of beans" from Casablanca.
We should all be so lucky to have a moment when our spirits allow us to be that selfless. But you will have your chance; many of you may have already -- to put someone else's happiness, someone else's well-being above yours. Nothing you have learned here will have prepared you for that feeling. And just imagine the elation you will give to someone else who you have helped selflessly -- willing to cause yourself pain or anguish to come to another's aid.
I have been on the receiving end: almost 20 years ago, my younger brother made a sacrifice for me. He gave me one of his kidneys when I needed a transplant. He did so without hesitation, without regard to the risks. He just did it. When I later saw the pain he had endured; - it is always much worse for the donor; - and yet saw him smiling at me because he knew he had changed my life, I felt luckier than I have ever felt. I am as healthy as can be almost two decades later; - and thank God, so is he.
I have had people make sacrifices for me many times since, pulling me up when I was down, forcing me to see the sun when I could only see darkness, embracing me when i needed it most. These are the people you should cherish, the ones you should never forget. and hope someday that you can do for them what they have done for you, and with the same generosity of spirit.
I've taken a couple risks myself, made a couple of sacrifices in my life I'd like to share with you. I decided a couple of years ago to write a book. I didn't think I could do it for many reasons, not the least of which was that the subject matter was sure to be controversial. The book was going to expose how a small group of operatives essentially controlled Nevada politics and was able to elect a terrible candidate and poor communicator to the state's most important office. It almost didn't get published.
I solicited the University of Nevada Press, which was initially enthusiastic but then wrote me a letter saying it "cut too close to the bone politically." That is, they were afraid to publish it. If not for the courage of a local publisher, who knew it wouldn't sell that many copes but agreed with me that it was an important story, the book would never have been published. And it hasn't sold many copies. but the book; - it is called "The Annointed One" -; is the proudest accomplishment of my career.
Yes, it caused me some problems; the least of which was some of the people in the book giving me the nickname, "the annoying one". Luckily, that moniker hasn't stuck; at least not yet. But the response, the encouragement, the feeling of satisfaction is ineffable. It was an impossible dream realized.
The other risk I took came almost seven years ago now. I wanted to have a child but couldn't naturally. So i agonized for months about what to do. Finally, my wife and I made the decision to adopt. I was terrified for the months leading to the baby's birth. Would I love the child as my own? What if she was horribly deformed; what then? What if the mother decided to keep the baby? It was excruciating. And then the day came and another cliché came true.
For those of you who, like me, didn't believe in love at first sight, have a child. Talk about an ineffable feeling. The joy was indescribable. Here was the cynical, jaded, hardened political pundit reduced to a sobbing mushball by this 6-pound miracle. That was as true a feeling as I have ever experienced.
As you leave here today to make your own way in the world, to find your version of truth about your own life, look forward to the trip. Embrace it. Revel in it. Live it. Don't worry about regrets -- don't waste time thinking about loves lost, things you should have done, decisions you should have made.
Learn the lessons and use them later. Find out what makes you happy and follow it. Don't settle. Don't tarry. Don't give in to what's easy; take the fork that looks more challenging.
My favorite line about college comes not from any of the books I have read, but from an unlikely source. It was spoken by Laurence Olivier in the film "Marathon Man" when he says to Dustin Hoffman: "I envy you your school days. Enjoy them fully. It's the last time in your life no one expects anything of you." Granted, he was playing a sadistic nazi dentist at the time, so his words may have lost some of their resonance for Hoffman's character, a meek runner he was about to torture. But I have thought of them many times since.
You may think that much has been expected of you here. But you ain't seen nothing yet. And when you leave, you will find that people expect more and more of you. My parting piece of advice to all of you is this: just don't let anyone else ever expect more of you than you do of yourself.
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