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Why They Hate Us 

 Mon May 21, 10:08am , 2007


Former Ambassador Oberwetter: Not putting the diploma in diplomacy.
Students walking from UT-Austin's School of Communications had a memorable graduation ceremony – just not in the way they expected. More in a "diplomatic incident" fashion.

The department had decided to pick a high-profile alumnus to deliver the commencement speech at the Frank Erwin Center Friday, but rather than getting a journalist, they picked former James Oberwetter, U.S. ambassador to Saudi Arabia. He then proved that diplomacy may be dead.

In a slow, stumbling, and stilted speech, Oberwetter decided to crack a funny about how much graduation robes look like the traditional clothing of his former residency – the men's thawb and the female hijab. Oberwetter then said he'd spent four years avoiding wearing such garb and that living in Saudi was like being in a nation of "salt and pepper pots." And lo, the sound of jaws dropping could be heard across the land.

For those that recognize the name, Oberwetter began as a water-carrier for the Texas GOP in the early Seventies and then became a firm Bush camp follower. He started as press secretary for then-Rep. George H. W. Bush and in 1996 was made chairman of the Texas Commission on Alcohol and Drug Abuse by then-Gov. George Bush. He's also an oil man associated with hawks, having spent three decades with Dallas-based Hunt Consolidated Inc., an oil firm whose founder, Ray L. Hunt, now sits on the boards of Halliburton and arch-neocon think tank the Center for Strategic and International Studies.

 

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COMMENTS
4
 
Too bad it wasn't at Engineering! ConanTheLibrarian May 21, 2007 - 02:47 pm
Just when you thought Bush appointees couldn't get any dumber, here comes a new low. Too bad it wasn't at Engineering; I could just imagine the Saudis and Conservative Muslims rushing the stage in outrage and ripping his vocal cords out. By now this story has been disseminated across the globe, and we shall be reading and hearing the consequences in body counts for months to come.



guest May 21, 2007 - 04:24 pm
What exactly does a nation of salt and pepper pots mean? That some of them are dark and some are white? I don't get it.


guest May 21, 2007 - 10:31 pm
Was he drunk?



Creamland Dairies Carl Swanson May 22, 2007 - 12:41 am
Saudies rushing the stage selling hotdogs is what they'd be doing in a desperate attempt to regain dominance in hairy fey fashion.




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