And, then it is back to Politics ... which is why you hang around this blog...

FIRST THOUGHTS.

*** Quintessential Obama: Anyone who didn't think President Obama would give a speech that would aim to rise above the back-and-forth over his commencement speech yesterday at Notre Dame hasn't been paying attention over the last two years.
It was quintessential Obama. He called for common ground to reduce unintended pregnancies, to make adoption easier, and to provide better health care for women who carry their children to term. But Obama also urged his audience for a more civil tone on thorny issues like abortion. "I do not suggest that the debate surrounding abortion can or should go away. Each side will continue to make its case to the public with passion and conviction. But surely we can do so without reducing those with differing views to caricature." He added, "Open hearts. Open minds. Fair-minded words." Of course, those words didn't stop the protests. NBC's Athena Jones, who was in the auditorium covering the speech, notes that four men -- none of them appearing to be students -- interrupted Obama's speech and a handful of graduates decorated their mortarboards with images of baby's feet and a cross in bright yellow. Still, the crowd as a whole was overwhelmingly positive.

*** Fair-Minded Words For SCOTUS Debate? In way, you could interpret Obama's remarks about "open hearts, open minds, fair-minded words" as the opening shot -- or better yet, a call for truce -- in the upcoming effort to replace David Souter on the Supreme Court, because it has the potential to be the latest salvo in the culture wars.
On Sunday, the New York Times front-paged how conservative groups are stockpiling political ammunition for Obama's eventual pick to succeed Souter. And Sunday's Washington Post noted how conservatives are focusing on gay marriage, believing that the issue "could provide a road map to an Obama nominee's judicial philosophy." Still, today's New York Times says that some Senate Republicans might not be as eager as conservative groups are in wanting to pick a Supreme Court fight. "Those Republicans, including senior staff aides and some senators, suggested in interviews that they believed Mr. Obama's first nominee for the court would be confirmed without great difficulty no matter how they framed the issues during the confirmation process."
*** A-Huntsman We Will Go: Obama's nomination of Utah Republican Gov. Jon Huntsman to be ambassador to China seems to benefit two people: Obama and Huntsman.
For Obama, it was yet another signal to independents and moderates that he's reaching across the aisle (Ray LaHood, Arlen Specter, and even the failed nomination of Judd Gregg are the other examples); it all but removed a potential 2012 challenger and an important moderate voice inside the GOP; and it showed that Obama's serious about China (Huntsman has sterling credentials -- he speaks Mandarin, did his Mormon mission in Taiwan, and served as George W. Bush's deputy U.S. trade representative). For Huntsman, the nomination gives him a job he obviously desired; it gets him out of the country at a time when his party is undergoing internecine warfare; and it possibly preps him for a presidential bid in 2016, bolstering his foreign affairs credentials.

By the way, the cynical side of us is very impressed with how Obama has so cleverly tied up two of his biggest potential rivals in the future. First, he offered Hillary the plum job at the State Department, removing her as a potential obstacle from the Senate. Now he's taken Huntsman off the table for 2012.

First Read with NBC News Political Director Chuck Todd, every weekday on MSNBC-TV at 9 a.m. ET.
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