First Lady Promotes Idealism

Hillary Rodham Clinton, delivering the commencement address at the University of Pennsylvania on Monday, called on about 5,000 graduates to find “meaning” by tackling society’s troubles.

Clinton urged the students to embrace the idealism that comes with youth, recalling her own idealistic commencement speech at Wellesley College in 1969. She touted the President’s national service program as a way for students to “find meaning by helping others” and her own work on overhauling the health care system as part of an effort to fashion “a healthier country” built on mutual concern.

She called on the students to help “make our diversity a source of strength and not weakness. . . . We are all in this together. As the President has said, we don’t have a person to waste.”

She also used her address to respond to the hubbub about her new haircut. “I need to get this out of the way,” she said. “It is, after all, the No. 1 issue. When the President called for sacrifice and asked everyone at the White House to take a 25% cut, I decided to go for a 50% cut to do my part.”