Today was another good day at the seminar. The speakers we had were Special Agent David O’ Connor, Marc Pachter from the Smithsonian National Portrait Gallery, and lastly a debate by Cal Thomas and Bob Beckel, columnists at USA Today. As the speakers went on today, I felt it got more interesting. Special Agent David O’ Connor was very interesting to listen to. He talked about the history of the secret service as well as entertaining a lot of questions from the students. There were some microphone issues that made it hard to focus during some of the questions.
Marc Pachter spoke next about the History of the Transition of Power. This presentation seemed dull to many but I found it to be interesting. He showed a lot of portraits of the former Presidents and then analyzed them. Some of the portraits were funny to see and to hear the story behind them. He mentioned suring his speech that temperment, more so than intellect, was the trait to posess as President. But putting temperment and intellect together made a dynamic pair.
The last of the speakers were Cal Thomas and Bob Beckel. They did a debate on behalf of Common Ground. Cal Thomas represented the Republicans and Bob Beckel represented the Democrats. The point of their talk was to educate people on coming together and getting rid of the hostility between both parties. If they both worked together then there would be a way to come up with an answer that everyone agrees on. Also, by putting more heads together, a collective thought between the parties will be expressed. This speech was my favorite of the day. I thought it was a great message and that both sides presented a funny and influential argument.
