At the close of his commencement speech before 250
graduates (and 4000 others) at tiny Knox College in Galesburg, Ill. on
Saturday, satirist Stephen Colbert left them with a piece of advice:
Get your own TV show. "It pays well," he observed, "the hours are great
and you have fans. Eventually, some nice people will give you an
honorary degree for doing jack squat."
This advice could be crucial, for earlier he had
observed: "I don't know if they've told you what's been happening in
the world while you've been matriculating. The world is waiting for you
people with a club....They are playing for KEEPS out there, folks."
Colbert, who slipped in and out of his rightwing
blowhard TV persona on Comedy Central’s “The Colbert Report,” received
an overwhelmingly positive response compared with the mixed reaction at
the recent White House Correspondents Dinner. Afterward, students
presented him with a purple “Veritasiness Tour” t-shirt (which
translates, very roughly, as "truthiness").
He had opened his speech with: "My name is Stephen
Colbert, but I actually play someone on television named Stephen
Colbert, who looks like me, and talks like me, but who says things with
a straight face he doesn't mean."
In that vein, Colbert considered the immigration
debate: "It’s time for illegal immigrants to go — right after they
finish (building) those walls." People keep saying immigrants built
America, "but here's the thing, it's built now. I think it was finished
in the '70s sometime. From this point it's only a touch-up and repair
job."
His suggestions for securing the U.S.-Mexico border
went beyond walls to include moats, fiery moats and fiery moats with
fire-proof crocodiles.
He added that the border with Canada also has to be
secure so Canadians cannot bring their "skunky beer" into the country.
He backed English as the official language of the United States — "God
wrote (the Bible) in English for a reason: So it could be taught in our
public schools."
Noting the college was founded by abolitionists,
Colbert came out against slavery. "I just hope the mainstream media
gives me credit for the stand I’ve taken today," he said.
Recently picked as one of the 100 Most Influential
People by Time magazine, Colbert quipped: "If you do the math, there
are 6.5 billion people in the world. That means that today I am here
representing 65 million people. That's as big as some countries. What
country has about 65 million people? Iran? Iran has 65 million people.
So, for all intents and purposes, I'm here representing Iran today.
Don't shoot."
Colbert, 42, graduated from Northwestern University in
Evanston 20 years ago. He said that instead of a diploma on his
commencement day, he got a scrap of paper, which informed him he had an
incomplete in one class. He said he happily waved it in the photos with
his parents that day. At the next graduation, half a year later, he
didn’t receive his diploma because of a library fine, he claimed.
He closed his speech on an apparently semi-serious
note, urging the grads to learn how to say "yes." He noted that saying
yes will sometimes get them in trouble or make them look like a fool.
But he added: "Remember, you cannot be both young and wise. Young
people who pretend to be wise to the ways of the world are mostly
cynics. Cynicism masquerades as wisdom, but it is the farthest thing
from it. Because cynics don't learn anything. Because cynicism is a
self-imposed blinder, a rejection of the world because we are afraid it
will hurt us or disappoint us.
"Cynics always say no. But saying yes begins things.
Saying yes is how things grow. Saying yes leads to knowledge. Yes is
for young people. So for as long as you have the strength to, say yes.
At the close of his commencement speech before 250
graduates (and 4000 others) at tiny Knox College in Galesburg, Ill. on
Saturday, satirist Stephen Colbert left them with a piece of advice:
Get your own TV show. 
