June 10, 2008

from Brian Williams's Commencement address at Ohio State University

I come here today with a request for the Class of ‘08: We need you to fix the country — and I’m sorry to ask this of you. And I’m deadly serious and we really do. I am 49 and on behalf of my generation, I’m so sorry, the Internet is so cool we got sidetracked. I can burn an hour on Perez Hilton like that. And I know I speak for a lot of you: WebMD, very cool, except anything I’ve ever punched in comes back “thyroid cancer.”

The Internet is fantastic and it takes way too much of our time, so, with apologies, we need you all now to step up and every adult in this place has every faith that you’re up to the job. You are today, as of today, as fearsome a weapon as the one they assembled during the Manhattan project in a similar place — Soldier Field up in Chicago. You are the most fearsome weapon in the world. You are students in the United States of America armed with a newly-minted college degree from the Ohio State University.

So pick one area: energy, politics, diplomacy, science, education, military, transportation. Start with climate. Something tells me this may be a challenge in the years ahead. Tomorrow’s predicted high for Columbus is 220 degrees.

[here]