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As Prepared for Delivery May 20, 2006
Class of 2006 — fellow survivors of November 2, 2004. I’m happy to be here at your beautiful school, which had my admiration long before that night when the country wondered whether I would win — and whether you would vote.

Your Web site has a profile of a very smart math major in the class of 2006. Joe Neilson. He said that once, after a statistics course here, he realized “the probability of any event in our lives is about zero.” “I probably spent a week,” Joe said, “annoying my friends by saying: “What are the odds?” Well Joe, what were the odds that we’d be linked by those long hours — not that I keep track — 560 days ago? Like everyone that night, I admired the tenacity of Kenyon students. But what you did went far beyond tenacity.

My wife, Teresa, is honored by the degree you grant her, today. But she’s also here to honor you because when you grow up in a dictatorship as she did, when you don’t get a chance to vote until you’re 31, when you see your father voting for the first time in his seventies, you know what a privilege it is to cast a ballot.

Through that long night, we in Massachusetts watched you in Gambier. We were honored. We were inspired. We were determined not to concede until our team had checked every possibility. If you could stay up all night to vote, we could certainly stay up that next day to make sure your vote would count. In the end, we couldn’t close the gap. We would have given anything to have fulfilled your hopes.

And I also thank those who cast a ballot for my opponent. I wish all Republicans had been just like you at Kenyon — informed, willing to stand up for your views — and only 10 percent of the vote. Actually, all of you, through your patience, and good humor showed Americans that politics matters to young people. And so I really do thank every student here. Read more

May 22, 2006
Thank you very much. Thank you to Chairman Pat Stokes, the Chairman of the Board of Trustees, to Jack Connors, the vice chairman and, of course, a special thanks to Father Leahy and to Father Monan who have given the leadership of this great university that has made it a very, very special place.

It’s wonderful to be back here in Boston and to join you for this splendid ceremony today. As an academic, I’m honored to be here at Boston College, a place of learning that is respected today not just in America, but throughout all the world. As a student of a Catholic high school, the Sisters of Loretta taught me, I am pleased to be at an institution of higher education with such strong and celebrated Catholic and Jesuit traditions.

But as a sports fan, I’m feeling a little uneasy standing right here on the 50-yard line of Eagles football. You see, I got my Master’s Degree at Notre Dame. (Boos.) I acquired a passion for the fighting Irish. Now for decades, I have to admit, though, I’ve been on the other side of what has become known as “the holy war” between our Catholic colleges. And for decades I’ve watched in frustration as Boston College has consistently ruined some of Notre Dame’s best seasons. (Applause.) Now I want to assure you I’m not here to wish the Eagles goodwill, but I do want to congratulate you on an impressive debut in the ACC last year and to say I know you’ll do it again. (Applause.) Members of the Board of Trustees, faculty and staff, distinguished alumni and guests and especially graduates and students, family and friends, Class of 2006, thank you for welcoming me here. I will always remember my undergraduate commencement at the University of Denver. I remember how proud my parents were. I remember the thrill of achieving an important goal. What I don’t remember is one word that my commencement speaker said. And chances are that you won’t either and I promise not to take it personally. Read more

[Pours water into a glass at the podium, splashes face and back of neck]Thank you. Thank you very much. First of all, I’m facing a little bit of a conundrum here. My name is Stephen Colbert, but I actually play someone on television named Stephen Colbert, who looks like me, and who talks like me, but who says things with a straight face he doesn’t mean. And I’m not sure which one of us you invited to speak here today. So, with your indulgence, I’m just going to talk and I’m going to let you figure it out.

I wanted to say something about the Umberto Eco quote that was used earlier from The Name of the Rose. That book fascinated me because in it these people are killed for trying to get out of this library a book about comedy, Aristotle’s Commentary on Comedy. And what’s interesting to me is one of the arguments they have in the book is that comedy is bad because nowhere in the New Testament does it say that Jesus laughed. It says Jesus wept, but never did he laugh.

But, I don’t think you actually have to say it for us to imagine Jesus laughing. In the famous episode where there’s a storm on the lake, and the fishermen are out there. And they see Jesus on the shore, and Jesus walks across the stormy waters to the boat. And St. Peter thinks, “I can do this. I can do this. He keeps telling us to have faith and we can do anything. I can do this.” So he steps out of the boat and he walks for—I don’t know, it doesn’t say—a few feet, without sinking into the waves. But then he looks down, and he sees how stormy the seas are. He loses his faith and he begins to sink. And Jesus hot-foots it over and pulls him from the waves and says, “Oh you of little faith.” I can’t imagine Jesus wasn’t suppressing a laugh. How hilarious must it have been to watch Peter—like Wile E. Coyote—take three steps on the water and then sink into the waves.

Well it’s an honor to be giving your Commencement address here today at Knox College. I want to thank Mr. Podesta for asking me two, two and a half years ago, was it? Something like that? We were in Aspen. You know—being people who go to Aspen. He asked me if I would give a speech at Knox College, and I think it was the altitude, but I said yes. I’m very glad that I did.

On a beautiful day like this I’m reminded of my own graduation 20 years ago, at Northwestern University. I didn’t start there, I finished there. On the graduation day, a beautiful day like this. We’re all in our gowns. I go up on the podium to get my leather folder with my diploma in it. And as I get it from the Dean, she leans in close to me and she smiles, and she says—[train whistle] that’s my ride, actually. I have got to get on that train, I’m sorry. [Heads off stage.] Evidently that happens a lot here.—So, I’m getting my folder, and the Dean leans into me, shakes my hand and says, “I’m sorry.” I have no idea what she means. So I go back to my seat and I open it up. And, instead of having a diploma inside, there’s a scrap—a torn scrap of paper—that has scrawled on it, “See me.” I kid you not. Read more