I have had the name Ken Starr waved in my face a few times today, once in reference to an incident at Wesley Theological Seminary. Before he became infamous, when he was just Bush 41's Solicitor General, he spoke at the commencement in 1992.
The announcement that Starr would so speak was not greeted with enthusiastic cheers from the student body. I was reminded (again) that one student wrote to the student newspaper, and included the marvelous phrase "pale, male, and probably stale" to describe the choice. I was among many students who thought it might be possible to choose someone else.
I remember that commencement very well, precisely because it was one of those tempests-in-a-campus-teapot that seem so transcendentally important at the time, but really don't mean all that much in the long run. After all the hoo-hah and back and forth, Starr came and gave his little speech - spending, I recall, much of the first half half-heartedly defending himself against much of the animosity directed his way by students - and then sat down. Because I was in the student choir, I was sitting in the chancel, and Starr actually sat right next to me. I introduced myself, a moment I'm sure he recalls with fondness. I could be as polite as the next person.
The next year, when I graduated, Harry Blackmun gave the commencement address. Hard on the heels of his very public decision to no longer support the death penalty, and in light of his being the author of Roe v Wade, it received much less student angst. I had several opportunities to sit and chat with Justice Blackmun, because he attended Metropolitan Memorial UMC, where I also attended, and more than once sat in front or behind him. A very nice man, easy to talk to.
Anyway, having read Starr's name today, and being reminded of that incident, I thought I'd offer this apropos of nothing more than my own brushes with the infamous and noted.
