How Many Graduations Did Gov. Moore Ruin?

Gov. Wes Moore celebrating the fact that he didn’t have to go to Frostburg.

When my daughter graduated from Frostburg University last week, I went with low expectations. In terms of attending long, bring events to see seconds of what we came for, graduations are right up there with Little League baseball games. There’s no better way to do either, though, we need rituals, etc.

I’m not looking up any names for this, but the college president or whomever acted as emcee was fine and the event was almost as painless as could be. The valedictorian was inspiring and didn’t do anything newsworthy like yell “Free Tibet!” or whatever hiply obscure issue compels today’s college students.

Then Maryland Governor Wes Moore decided to ruin the entire event with his pseudo-presence. Right before we got to leave, to be reunited with our graduates and go scramble for seats at local restaurants, or finish moving out, or any of the literally billions of things that are better than hearing a politician plumb the depths of platitudinous self-indulgence, the emcee put the breaks on.

Governor Moore, they said, had favored us with a pre-recorded video address. He wasn’t appearing remotely, he just repeated all the most tedious phrases of the event we’d just sat through with less sincerity than should be humanly possible.

To be fair to the governor, he was in a difficult position. He could have just kept his stupid mouth closed or not. It’s not his fault that he doesn’t know that there’s not one human being that feels better about sitting through a graduation when they’re forced to endure lazy political pandering.

This is clearly a tone deaf man surrounded by tone-deafer sycophants.

There’s a school of acting (that I’m not looking up) where you learn to repeat words into meaninglessness. Through no fault of their own, graduations have done this to words like “hard work” and “sacrifice.”

I can’t tell you what the governor actually said, but I’ll bet you already have a pretty good sense if you’ve ever been to a graduation.

I don’t know if I made this clear or not, but the address wasn’t for Frostburg students. There was no pretense of personalization. It was a boilerplate address he forced on every college in the state. How Orwellian is that? “Before you leave, the great father has generic false praise to heap upon you.”

When I say boilerplate, I don’t want to give you the impression that he did different introductions, like Keith Richards does when he tells you you’re listening to the home of rock. In fact, it is more likely that Keith Richards believes that WFSU is the home of rock than that Wes Moore believes the students at Frostburg University worked hard or deserved praise.

That was the worst part. After an hour of celebrating those particular graduates, of hearing each of their individual names and cheering for people we knew and didn’t know alike. After the years of effort and encouragement, Wes Moore stumbled in to remind them they were all meaningless cogs.

That’s what I remember about the governor’s speech. He may as well have said, “I know you’ve been hearing that you’re special. And maybe you are to the insignificant mooks in the audience. Just remember, whomever you are and in whatever shithole part of the state you reside, that I, the governor of Maryland, bullied the president whatever school this is into playing this video.”

I genuinely believe that the only people that hated the governor’s speech more than me were the university presidents he forced it upon. I mean, graduation is really their time to shine, to show that they’re committed to the tradition but also to finesse it. I like to imagine they suffer a bit over their speeches, trying to make them good but also short but also hitting the expected notes but also short. And still genuine.

I don’t remember the president’s speech at Frostburg, which means they hit it out of the park. I’ll remember that the governor “spoke” forever, though. I’ll remember the insult, the bone-aching arrogance behind the decision to be the final speaker at every graduation in the state.

I’ll probably forget, but this time next year I want to start a #MDGovSTFU campaign. The people and, more important, the parents and graduates of the Class of 2024 deserve better than to be forced to watch Gov. Moore masturbate in front of every college graduate.

Keep the Faith,

Tony

P.S. I just found the photo above. Knowing he was at the Preakness doesn’t help.