Protests, Heckles Greet McCain at Graduation

Arizona Sen. John McCain received a cantankerous reception Friday at the New School’s commencement, where dozens of faculty members and students turned their backs and raised protest signs and a student speaker mocked him as he sat silently on stage.

The historically liberal university has been roiled in controversy in recent weeks over the selection of the Republican and likely 2008 presidential candidate to speak to its 2,700 graduates and thousands of family, friends and faculty.

The Madison Square Garden crowd cheered loudly as Jean Sarah Rohe said McCain “does not reflect the ideals upon which this university was founded.”

Rohe, one of two distinguished seniors invited to address the graduates, noted that McCain had promised to deliver the same speech he gave at the Rev. Jerry Falwell’s Liberty University last weekend and Columbia University on Tuesday.

“He will tell us we are young and too naive to have valid opinions,” Rohe said. “I am young, and though I don’t possess the wisdom that time affords us, I do know that preemptive war is dangerous. And I know that despite all the havoc that my country has wrought overseas in my name, Osama bin Laden still has not been found, nor have those weapons of mass destruction.”

McCain thanked Rohe for her “CliffsNotes” version of his speech. He reaffirmed his support for the Iraq war but urged debate and dissent.