Five and a half years in the Hanoi Hilton and the narcissistic little turdlets can’t sit still for fifteen minutes and politely hear him out. It’s brilliant politics, though: he reeks on immigration, he’s a First Amendment nightmare, and then I read a story about dKos hatchlings jeering him and I’m instantly in his corner. Rich Lowry and Richard Baehr give props.

The Times naturally quotes one line from McCain’s speech while devoting seven paragraphs to the student speaker who’s pissed that we haven’t invaded Pakistan yet to get Bin Laden. Note the final line, in which Bob Kerrey congratulates the crowd for not being even bigger jackasses than they were.

Lowry’s account at NRO is much better. As close as you can get to masturbation without hand lotion and Kleenex:

He eventually enters into a Bushian rift: “All people share the desire to be free”; “human rights are above the state and beyond history”; we are “insisting that all people have the right to be free.” Someone shouts: “We’re graduating, not voting!” Lots of derisive shouts and laughter and applause.

As McCain continues with a personal story, a student shouts: “It’s about my life, not yours.” McCain: “When I was a young man, I thought glory was the highest value…” Groans from the students. “It’s not about you!” “Sit down!”

Emphasis added. And one more quote, from the Nation via the Political Pitbull:

Remarks such as “I supported the decision to go to war in Iraq,” were met with loud boos.

“I stand that ground because I believed, rightly or wrongly, that my country’s interests and values required it.”

“Wrongly!” one student boomed from the back. Sitting directly behind us, Maureen Dowd and Adam Nagourney of the New York Times, chuckled.

Of course they did.

Don’t be too hard on the kids, though. They can’t help it.

Update: Ace floats a thesis.