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At Chelsea Clinton's Graduation, Dad Speaks

WASHINGTON (AllPolitics, June 6) -- First daughter Chelsea Clinton graduated from high school today, with her mother looking on and her father telling the 122-member senior class to "be brave and dream your dreams."

"Class of 1997, you are beautiful," President Bill Clinton, the commencement speaker, told the Sidwell Friends graduates. "Go out and live like it. Be humble and be proud. Be of service. Be optimistic and grateful. Be brave and dream your dreams."

Chelsea, clad in a white dress, accepted her diploma on a stage under two giant sycamore trees, then dashed across the platform to hug her father.

During his comments, the president at times spoke wistfully, with reflections on fatherhood.

"Members of the class of '97, you are not the only graduates here today," he said. "Even though we are staying home, your parents are graduating too. Just as your pride and joy in this day must be tempered by the separation of Sidwell and the daily contact with the wonderful friends that you have made here, our pride and joy are tempered by our coming separation from you. So I ask you at the beginning to indulge your folks if we seem a little sad or we act a little weird. You see, today we are remembering your first day in school, and all the triumphs and travails between then and now."

In keeping with past tradition, the private school excluded reporters from the graduation ceremony, but the White House set up an audio feed of Clinton's remarks into the press briefing room. Following a graduation reception at the school, Chelsea's grandparents and uncles joined the Clintons at the White House.

The seventeen-year-old is headed for Stanford University next fall. By all accounts, her parents are bracing for the impact of their only child's departure.

"We find ourselves fighting back tears as we contemplate what our days will be like when our daughter leaves the nest to embark on a new stage of life," Hillary Clinton wrote in her syndicated column this week.

Earlier, spokesman Mike McCurry described the president as anxiously weighing his message. "The president gets help sometimes on his speeches, but there's only one pen on this one -- and it's daddy's," McCurry told reporters.