Xavier University Prof Put Boehner On Path To Speaker: 'John, You Ought To Think About Getting Yourself Back To School'

XU Prof Bill "Smitty" Smith

CINCINNATI (TDB) -- A conversation in a suburban Cincinnati tavern 39 years ago after a high school basketball game set John Boehner on the course that has taken him to national prominence. Xavier prof Bill Smith -- who taught accounting for 50 years -- was at the Kenwood Tavern, the kind of neighborhood bar that dots Ohio cities.  He told Boehner it was time to get a degree.  Boehner had dropped out of the University of Cincinnati with bad grades, and was scraping by driving bulldozers, working construction and refereeing high school sports.  He had $400 in his bank account.  Boehner told the story about Smith's impact on his life in the 2006 commencement speech (pdf) he delivered on Xavier's campus in Cincinnati. Here's his recollection about the professor, who was widely known as 'Smitty' and died in 2009:

"After I had been out of school for several years, Bill and I were officiating together, out in Timbuktu somewhere, and in January 1971 we were having dinner after the game at the Kenwood Tavern.  Bill Smith leaned over to me and said, 'John you ought to think about getting yourself back to school.'  He said, 'You need to come to Xavier.'"

Boehner said he couldn't afford it.  Smith paved the way with the admission office.  Boehner took three classes and finished the semester with A and Bs.  He commuted, dropped out, then spent five years in night school.  He graduated in 1977 -- six years after Smitty told him to get a college education.  Now he's about to become Speaker of the U.S. House of Representatives, one of the highest offices in the land.  And it all started with a barroom conversation.  Bill Smith didn't make the Republican speaker, but he surely helped set him on course for the job.

Hillary Supporter At McCain's Cincinnati Rally: Allegations She Was Planted By GOP Are False

CINCINNATI (TDB) -- Chatter on the blogosphere today suggests that the woman in the Hillary Clinton cap was a fake Clinton backer who was planted to question Arizona Sen. John McCain at his Xavier University rally in Cincinnati. The hat was a device meant to signal McCain so he could spot her in the audience. But the woman, Rosemary Meinders, really was a Clinton supporter and donated $1,706 to Hillary's unsuccessful presidential campaign in 2008. Meinders is a retired City of Cincinnati worker who is known in the political community. She is registered as a Democrat. So the suggestion of political trickery is an urban legend.

Some of the talk that she was a plant apparently is fueled by skepticism over the McCain camp's efforts to draw in disaffected female voters. The Republican presidential candidate has been making a bid for estranged Clintonistas who can't stand Barack Obama. The existence of that sentiment surfaced in Jamie Farnsworth's CBS News piece about the McCain town hall at Xavier, which noted a poll showing half of Hillary's voters are still shopping for a new candidate. And the claim the woman in the navy blue Hillary cap at Xavier was planted also surfaced in the comment thread under the story:

"The woman was a plant. McCaine (sic) has a 'Hillary supporter' at every rally. All his town halls are a rigged audience and softball questions from his supporters. The reporter really needs to learn how to research a topic. Jamie Farnsworth, you fail."

The 6:31 PM commenter was wrong. Meinders was not a plant. And she is still undecided after hearing McCain. Meinders told the Columbus Dispatch that she remains a voter looking for a candidate.