AMERICA – QUOTE OF THE DAY – AT 9:51 A.M. ET:  The pompous and usually forgettable commencement addresses are largely over, but we were struck by one comment that actually wasn't part of a commencement address, but of a speech given to a private organization by a woman who's never invited to deliver commencement addresses.  She isn't politically correct.  She won't follow the leftist party line. 

She is Ayaan Hirsi Ali, the Muslim woman born in Somalia, a political activist in the Netherlands for years, and now a devoted American.   She spoke at a Gala given by the conservative magazine, The New Criterion: 

America: it’s an idea. I repeat it, it’s an idea. I’ve never felt more at home in any other place than in the United States of America. I’m at home with the idea of America. That doesn’t make me disloyal to being Somali or having lived in Kenya for several years. There are many things about Kenya and Nairobi that I’m attached to. I lived in The Netherlands and I was given a great deal of freedom. I couldn’t be who I am if I hadn’t happened to have lived in The Netherlands.

But there’s something that is unique and so exceptional about being in the United States of America and belonging to that idea of America. Four nights ago, I went to see Hamilton. Now, think about any other nation on the planet where you could have that kind of reflection on the founding fathers, all cast with African Americans and other minorities. Throughout, I thought, “I wish they were alive. I wish they could see this. I wish Thomas Jefferson could see this. I wish Alexander Hamilton could see how he was portrayed.” And maybe, in this audience, I am speaking to the choir. I know you appreciate how exceptional America is.

We have to pass on these ideas to the next generation. We often think about the next generation as our children. I have a four-year-old son. We’re teaching him about the flag and all, but he’s only interested in the swords and spears and the fighting process of it. But the next generation also includes immigrants. And we appreciate it more than you who are born here. In fact, I think that there are more immigrants willing to die for the idea of America than Millennials. I teach a class at Harvard, and there was someone who came to the Kennedy School, and he said, “I don’t care what America looks like 500 years from now. I don’t care if it’s dominated by Islam.” And I just thought, cringing, “Of course I care. I care. I don’t want the idea of America to be dominated by Islam.”

COMMENT:  Now you can see why she's not invited to deliver commencement addresses.  A few years ago she was offered an honorary degree by Brandeis University, and then saw the offer withdrawn publicly because of objections from the far-left faculty. 

But her words resonate.  The words of her detractors are quickly, and properly, forgotten.

June 3, 2016