Spring is upon us, which means that all around the country, naïve 22-year-olds are chugging their last beers so they can take some tests, walk across a stage, and get violently slapped in the face by a reality that will maybe involve an unpaid internship, prostitution and food stamps, and probably some borderline homelessness. This is what it means to “win the future.” But before American colleges cast out their best and brightest, there’s a tradition of having someone semi-famous inspire the debt-ridden youth to somehow change the world. This year, three universities seemingly won the jackpot when it was announced that our FLOTUS would be giving the commencement addresses at Northern Iowa, West Point, and Spelman. But apparently no one asked the Iowans if they wanted Michelle Obama to come talk to their youth.
On May 7, our FLOTUS is scheduled to address the graduating class at the University of Northern Iowa. Some people on Facebook are angry about this!
A UNI Facebook post announcing the news has garnered more than 330 “Likes” and 75 comments, but not all the responses have been positive.
“It made me really upset,” said Julie Wheeler, a graduating senior in communications and electronic media. “She was forced upon us … because one person’s mom wrote a letter.”
Julie Wheeler is now using her pending degree in Twitter-based unemployment to organize an anti-FLOTUS Facebook movement, because UNI deserves to have the least interesting commencement speaker possible. Otherwise, the parking lots will be too full and there won’t be enough room for all the Hoverounds.
Wheeler hopes to start a Facebook page called “Keep Politics out of UNI Graduation” to see just how many people are unhappy with the administration’s decision. She added that protests both before and during graduation could be planned.
“I plan on going whether she speaks or not, but I will plan on peacefully or silently protesting while she is speaking,” Wheeler said. “I don’t want to be disruptive or disrespectful toward her, but I want to do something. It might just be holding up a newspaper or turning my chair around to show that not all of us are for it.”
Nothing says “Keep Politics out of UNI Graduation” like an angry Facebook page! Intro PoliSci classes at UNI give extra credit for newspaper/backwards chair protests. Some diplomas are probably counting on it. [KCRG]
Blair Burke (blairelinor@gmail.com) obsessively follows Michelle Obama’s every move for “The FLOTUS Files,” which appears every Monday here at your Wonkette.
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So Snooki wasn't available?
Oh darn it. I was typing away and you beat me to the Snooki snark.
Ich auch.
“I plan on going whether she speaks or not, but I will plan on peacefully or silently protesting while she is speaking,” Wheeler said.
What she meant was that she would be sexting her Young Republican boyfriend who will pass along her message to a few dozen of his closest friends, and Ms. Wheeler will be shocked that an upstanding Republican would violate her family values so blatantly.
Sexting? It doesn't sound like this person's been laid in the last four years.
Julie sounds like an animal husbandry major.
Sexting doesn't necessarily mean that the person was having actual sex, as in with another human. She'll probably do an "up-robe" graduation shot.
Any bets that UNI would eagerly accept Commencement Speaker Snooki with no debate?
Is Michelle running for president? Why else would anyone voluntarily set foot in Iowa?
UNI, home of the famous Panthers
http://www.unipanthers.com/
There is a quip there FLOTUS, Panthers but just can't connect it
Grow up, Julie Wheeler! Take the $50.00 Target gift cards your mee-maw and paw-paw gave you for your graduation gift and go and get some big girl underwear. You are going to need it for the real world.
My underwear fists this comment.
Skip the underwear. She needs kneepads and Chapstick for the world she's about to enter.
Aww man, I saw "Michelle Obama Kills…" and got all excited. Way to get my hopes up, Burke.
Nothing says "I don't disrespect you" more clearly than holding up a newspaper or turning your chair around while she's wishing you well for the future.
She doesn't "want" to do it, silly. But she has to, as her patriotism/talking Gadsden flag that only she can hear is making her!
"Hissss, they're treading on you, Julie! They're all treading on you! Hissssss!"
Wheeler said. “I don’t want to be disruptive or disrespectful toward her, but I want to do something.
Julie will wear her Klan outfit. Silently.
~
Is Julie a blonde?
She's a Young Republican; they don't let women in without the peroxide hair.
"…a graduating senior in communications and electronic media." Julie majored in e-mail and Facebook.
With a minor in down-fisting and Farmville.
Isn't "communications" the phony major used by the unpaid professional athletes who pretend to be college students?
And some former half-term governors who shall remain nameless.
Man, this next generation of wingnuts is even whinier than the last.
UNI should just stick to Dane Cook. College is no place to be exposed to political debate or major public figures.
Sorry, Julie, but competition for blond-o-the-week at Fox is fierce. Nothing short of a colossal bitchtacular public freakout will get you noticed. I suggest brandishing a weapon and copy of the Federalist Papers at your commencement. Maybe shout some Lee Greenwood lyrics for extra flair points.
Do they have FEMA camps in Iowa? If they do, Julie just moved to the top of the list.
Dear Ms. Wheeler
I'd like to offer you a life lesson, sans tuition, in the form of an anecdote:
No one asked me if I wanted David "Diapers" Vitter to give a rambling, idiotic speech about why he should be Governor of Louisiana at my commencement, because they didn't care. And you know what? I sucked it up and dealt with it, because: (a) even then I knew it's not all about me, and often what I think doesn't matter, and (b) I was graduating, so it was time to act like an adult, not a whining self-righteous vagina.
Yours,
B. Donkadonkette
Very nice, more concise than my memo to Ms. Dipshit.
Its not like Michelle Obama has accomplished anything. FLOTUS is so below lets say NeNe from real atlanta housewifes.(my wife watches)
(my wife watches)
mmmmmhmmmmm….
Suicide is painless. It brings on many changes…
What are these Grassley acolytes doing sucking at the public teat by going to a State University? Damn whit trash!
How is advocating for healthy food and finding a solution to childhood obesity political? Julie?
It is anti-business, Communist propaganda designed to destroy America's booming Fast Food and gastric stapling sector.
Broccoli is a tool of the Communiss. Ms. Obama's Elmo-dancing Food & Exercise Pyramid is paving the way for a generation of militant muslin robotchildren.
Yes Because Mad Michelle does not represent a political party started on this planet.
Most of the students are upset because they were holding out for the real power in this country, George Soros.
For the first time in my adult lifetime, I'm really proud of my country, and not just because UNI students have put up angry Facebook pages, but because I think people are hungry for the end of Socialism.
And the better news is that soon, folks will just be hungry. Capitalism!!!Capitalism!!!USA!USA!!!
“She was forced upon us … because one person’s mom wrote a letter.”
And that person was Malia.
On May 7th let's all drive to Cedar Falls, pull over to the side of the highway, pull out our bars of temporary soap, and just sit there the whole time she's talkin'. "Imagine the traffic reports!"
How did that traffic thing work out, anyway? I don't remember reading anything about it.
Oh…yeah.
From "Grrrrrr":
I hope she talks about the war Barack started in Libia.
'Nuff said. Your move, Iowa.
I thought he started the war in Labia.
No, no, I believe he and Michelle are very happy.
If you mean warlike labia, that would be Palin.
Maybe if Michele had taken her up on top of a campus building and played USC coed with her, Julie would be cool with the FLOTUS' visit.
Dude!
Julie Wheeler just sounds really fucking lazy.
If it were "Crazy Eyes" Bachmann delivering the address and Julie were a liberal and did this, she would be tazed….then arrested…then raped.
“Keep Politics out of UNI Graduation”
But it's okay if Steve King comes.
copiously?
Yech.
Silly Wonkette, West Point graduates will never want for employment!
This is going to double both the population of coloreds and the cumulative IQ in Iowa for a day. No wonder they're a-scared. I'm runnin' to the barn, maw, just tell me when she's gone!
Jeez, Julie! Coulda been worse. The most threatening thing FLOTUS might say is "Put down your McBurgers, get off your lard asses, and do something useful with your lives, like walking." Ralph Nader spoke at my graduation, and it wasn't very cheery, but rather prescient, given today's political climate.
"…silently protesting while she is speaking,”…
Silence is probably the best thing you have to offer… but seeing as how you are apparently a spoiled little brat, you probably won't remain so.
No, she will slowly morph into a quietly miserable Conservatard Wife and Mother with a fat husband and fatter kids whose only pleasure in life is food and hating the poors for all their luxuries.
Luxuries purchased with abortion dollars no doubt.
No doubt!
She can always carve a B into her face for protest.
“I don’t want to be… disrespectful toward her, but I want to … (turn) my chair around to show that not all of us are for it.”
Naw, that's not disrespectful at all.
Did they ask John-boy about this?
Does the outrage have anything to do with Michelle Obama's war on fat people? This is University of Northern Iowa after all.
Iowa was ranked the 22nd fattest state on average in the US in 2010. I'm not trying to be Mr. Factual but do you actually think everyone from Iowa is a fat worthless slob? Don't be a lazy moron and look up your facts before you spew nonsense out of your mouth. I graduated from Northern Iowa, I am 6'0" tall, I'm 195 lbs., and I can arm curl your I.Q. Is that good enough for you and your Shape-Ups?!?!
Julie Wheeler, a graduating senior in communications and electronic media.
Ah, a Fox "News" wannabe huh? If you're going to go for Megyn Kelly's job you've got some big cups to fill, Julie.
Naw, she's gonna be a Palin staff member.
“I don’t want to be… disrespectful toward her, but I want to …", Much like the man said calmly as he slid an eight-inch dagger slowly into his victim's solar plexus: "this may hurt.".
Julie, you are a silly little whiny bitch.
This will undoubtedly come as a big surprise to you, but out in The World (where Grownups live), an event designed for thousands and thousands and thousands of people may not always Revolve, Like Totally, around you.
Example: A very large organization of 13,000 people (plus their family and friends) invites the First Lady of the United States to speak at their most important annual event. You, little old you, the one and only you, having no sense whatsoever of history, culture, good citizenship, etc. decide that this invitation is a bad thing.
Your appropriate course of action in Grownupland?
Sit down, behave, mind your manners and don't shame yourself or your organization, you ill-bred, bad-mannered, badly brought up little snot.
This should be mimeographed for mass distribution.
Hey, Julie, I hear McDonald's is hiring!
scott walker.
backward chair protesting is the twitter generation's answer to kent state.
I guess the modern day Guard's answer would be to walk around smacking the folding chairs closed with the protesters in them?
I'll bet that Julie baby would have auctioned herself off to the highest bidder if it had meant that Sarah Palin or Michelle Bachmann would be the Univ of Northern Iowa commencement speaker. Wonder what that Facebook page would look like then? Julie, you're a simple-minded solipsistic screwball.
Tada!
"Wheeler hopes to start a Facebook page called “Keep Politics out of UNI Graduation”"
Oh, please. Hopes to start? I'm not a facebook expert, but how hard can this little chore be for an (ahem) "electronic media" and "communications" major?
Could our little miss Julie Pissypants be upset because mama's special snowflake isn't valedictorian?
Why doesn't my local news-whores report on every facebook page creating whim i consider following up on? I have many.
Keep Politics out of UNI Graduation
Um, lady, Michelle is not a politician. Last I checked, she was not elected to anything.
Clearly all of our wonderful friends here are only ok with civil discourse on their own terms. The idea of any of you holding a job that isn't in a slum or belonging to a union is hard to imagine. Your pride and joy, FDR, is the direct cause for the unimaginable debt we now sit with. You are a joke. The ignorant people of Iowa are far above you in every conceivable way. Hard work and a solid work ethic will give you more than the all powerful UAW or rather the civil service employees of Wisconsin. To you I say, take your flotus and single term president, when we need somebody to make a real decision we will look to the gop next February. (Let me direct you to the Iowa caucuses). Ignorance is truly bliss for the lowly steel worker who read this page on a regular basis.
Ted Turner spoke at my commencement speech (VCU '98). Less than 10 minutes in he had alienated half of the students. VCU has a huge art school. Ted said something like, "Just because you studied art, well, you can still do something with your life. You can write computer programs or something else productive."
Maybe FLOTUS will say something equally controversial, such as "Remember to get up and move your corn-fed asses for an hour each day."
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