We’re not the only ones to think the Napolitano speech was a dud

The thing it lacked

The Sacramento Bee runs an editorial lamenting the lack of vision in the speech:

University of California’s newest president, Janet Napolitano, in her first major speech to Californians had the opportunity to show, in the words of the search committee that selected her, that she could bring “fresh eyes and a new sensibility – not only to UC, but to all of California.”  She fell far short.

With no record as a scholar or in campus administration, she had to show that she would bring more than her background as a politician and political appointee to the job. But in her first major speech, delivered on Wednesday to the Commonwealth Club in San Francisco, she sounded like she was trying inoculate herself against protests of her tenure at the U.S. Department of Homeland Security, rather than offer a principled, thoughtful vision of the future of the University of California…

Napolitano said that in two weeks, she would bring “big ideas” to the UC regents for their consideration. We look forward to that. We hope Napolitano has more to offer at the regents meetings Nov. 12-14 than she did in the Commonwealth Club address.  

Full editorial at http://www.sacbee.com/2013/11/01/5870553/editorial-janet-napolitano-offers.html