Former key figures of G.W. Bush’s administration are well advised to carefully take possible so far unatoned war crimes into account when going public. Condoleezza Rice had apparently noticed that it simply would not be possible to give her commencement speach at New Jersey’s Rutgers University (including a $35,000 honorarium) as planned. Students and professors, who would like to question her contributions in the Iraq war disaster and her role in authorizing torture techniques (“enhanced interrogation techniques”) at Guantanamo, in Afghanistan and Abu Ghraib in Iraq, would certainly heckle.

Condoleezza Rice is Professor of Political Economy in the Graduate School of Business at Stanford University. She certainly knows what commencement, or graduation ceremony, means to students. Thus, she just cancelled her appearance although University Professor Robert Barchi did not rescind the invitation.