Colbert Tells College Graduates: Get Your Own TV Show

http://www.editorandpublisher.com/eandp/news/article_display.jsp?vnu_content_id=1002613019

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, two of the school's alumni 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."

http://www.knox.edu/x12547.xml - edited to add text of entire speech

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."

Well, you are about to start the greatest improvisation of all. With no script. No idea what’s going to happen, often with people and places you have never seen before. And you are not in control. So say “yes.” And if you’re lucky, you’ll find people who will say “yes” back.

Now will saying “yes” get you in trouble at times? Will saying “yes” lead you to doing some foolish things? Yes it will. But don’t be afraid to be a fool. Remember, you cannot be both young and wise. Young people who pretend to be wise to the ways of the world are mostly just 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 blindness, 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.”

And that’s The Word.