Madison - President Bush's got a challenge Sunday at a University of Wisconsin-Madison commencement ceremony.

Bradley Whitford, who plays Democratic White House deputy chief of staff on NBC's "The West Wing," dared Bush to swear, under oath, that he wrote the speech he gave Friday at Concordia University in Mequon. The crowd inside UW-Madison's Kohl Center cheered.

Whitford said he wrote his own speech for the weekend graduation ceremonies, but doubts Bush wrote his.

"Concordia got ripped off," Whitford joked. "George Bush did not write that speech. There's no way."

A Madison native who attended the city's East High School, Whitford was chosen by the graduating class as guest speaker.

More than 5,000 students graduated in the three days of ceremonies. On Sunday morning, more than 8,000 people came to watch.

In 2003, Whitford won an Emmy for his role as the sarcastic and sometimes-arrogant-but-almost-always-right Josh Lyman on the popular NBC show.

Sunday morning, he shared the rules he followed when he started working as an actor. He suggested the rules were also life lessons.

Among them: drown out self-doubt by hard work, learn from mistakes and pay attention to the process of life, not just the end results.

He also urged the graduates to think creatively and question authority.

"We have a lot of problems in this world," Whitford said. "We need you to think out of the box. I'm not suggesting you bleach your hair to play the jerk in an Adam Sandler movie, but don't limit yourself," he said referring to his role in the 1995 movie "Billy Madison."

Sounding closer to his role in "West Wing," where he often takes jabs at his character's assistant, who attended UW-Madison, Whitford pushed the graduates to hold onto the idea of democracy. He warned that without active participation in democracy, people lose control over civil rights, free speech and the idea of a free nation.

"You don't get democracy; you make it happen," Whitford said. "This isn't a television show - the consequences (of your decisions) are real."

From the May 17, 2004 editions of the Milwaukee Journal Sentinel

Source | http://www.jsonline.com/news/state/may04/229961.asp
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