1:50: Gene Nichol, setting a modest tone for his address: “If George Bush taught us anything, it’s the importance of diminished expectations.”
1:52: Nichol won’t be measuring things, “The bigger I get, the less interested I get in measuring things.” Crack at law students, who are bad at measuring things.
1:54: “These are chilly times,” Nichol’s home state of NC is debating whether to establish a state religion. “But the only state religion in North Carolina is college basketball.”
1:55: The South has more poverty, and fewer politicians who care about it, than other regions.
1:57: Gideon handed down almost exactly 50 years ago, by a Supreme Court willing to rethink major American traditions to intervene on the side of the powerless and marginalized, in contrast to the current trend of rethinking tradition to help the privileged.