Keller @ Large: Walkout On Mike Pence At Notre Dame Was No Big Deal
BOSTON (CBS) -- Vice President Mike Pence gave the commencement speech at Notre Dame yesterday, and if you just glanced at the headlines or got your news off one of the online indignation factories, you might think something important happened there.
But it didn't.
Pence gave an anodyne speech advocating for "integrity and values" and urging graduates to live according to their religious principles. And an estimated 150 people, "about half students and the other half family members," according to the South Bend Tribune, got up and walked out as he began to speak.
To put this protest in context, there were 3,100 students getting their sheepskin at Notre Dame yesterday.
So if roughly 75 of the walkouts were students, that's a shade more than two percent of the graduates, an unimpressive showing that doesn't merit the adjective "large" some news outlets attached to it.
Pablum of a speech, pallid protest.
But of course the internet trolls of the left and right are treating it like World War III.
Wrote one Republican I follow on Twitter: "A bunch of millennials walking out of a commencement speech by Pence is exactly why Trump won," a complete non-sequitur.
And consider how foolish the protesters look.
It takes no courage to walk out on a commencement speech, and the message it sends – I don't want to hear what he has to say – is both pointless and stupid. If they think Pence is their enemy, they should be listening to him intently to learn his message and tactics and prepare to counter them.
After all, Pence might be our president one day, maybe sooner rather than later.
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