The flack over the president's upcoming speech seems, much like this pig flu business, to be largely blown out of proportion. According to Notre Dame's website, Barack Obama will be the ninth U.S. president to be awarded an honorary degree by the University of Notre Dame and the sixth to be the Commencement speaker. Past speakers included the pro-choice Jimmy Carter, but the list is heavy with GOP presidents Reagan, Bush 41 and 43. The abortion issue continues to provide safe ground for conservatives whose actual reasons for so virulently disliking the president have much sadder and more ignorant origins. These same groups disliked President Bill Clinton and perhaps just as intensely, but the meanness of the edge, here, suggests people who despise the president and who are in search of a reason why. I've not seen such virulence leveled at Clinton or Carter or, for that matter, Edward Kennedy or John Kerry. President George W. Bush, whom these folks embraced wholeheartedly, did virtually nothing to change the legal status of abortion. With the exception of a reversing of Bush's more futile arm flailing (bans on stem cell research and foreign aid gag rules), President Obama's policies do not differ measurably from President Bush's. Yet, Bush 41 and 43 were both greeted with open arms, while the conservative right wing is gearing up to disrupt a commencement ceremony with brazenly obvious political racism cloaked in phony outrage. Would any of this be happening if Bill Clinton were speaking?