Posted by Bill in Afghanistan, barack obama, Current Events, Korea, Obama, Politics, Terrorism, Uncategorized.
Tags: barack obama, controversy, diplomats, Korea, Obama, president, terrorism, Wikileaks
While my first reaction to the Wikileaks adventure was to prosecute them and to wonder how bad the diplomatic fallout would be, my second reaction on reading the specifics was to applaud the professionalism of what our government is doing to solve the many problems around the world.
What really tickled me was that Sarah Palin, in an interview about her new book, was asked what she would do differently that President Obama about North Korea. After going on about our need for energy independence and how vulnerable she feels as an American with President Obama in charge of our security she finally answered that she would pressure China to lean on North Korea to get them to behave.
Sure enough that is what President Obama and his people are doing. Guess we don’t need Sarah Palin as president after all. And ain’t that a relief, you betcha.
Anyway, these leaks giving our diplomats an embarrassing moment. However they do have the virtue of showing that the Obama administration is doing the right things in protecting and furthering America’s security and interests.
I thought that this column by Leslie Gelb that appeared in the Dallas Morning News today summed up my thoughts very nicely.
From http://www.dallasnews.com/sharedcontent/dws/dn/opinion/viewpoints/stories/DN_1206edi_gelb.29020a91c.html
Leslie Gelb: How the WikiLeaks scandal actually helped the U.S.
In explaining his deed publicly, WikiLeaker
Julian Assange suggests that what he’s doing is uncovering American misdeeds and lies. Yet here’s what he missed in what he turned over to the drooling press: Our diplomats were doing a good job.
Indeed, when you turn off his nonsense and stop listening to the strange commentary on cable news and even on the front pages of great newspapers, when you actually read the documents, here’s what you see: American leaders and American diplomats trying to solve crucial world problems.
U.S. policymakers and diplomats are shown, quite accurately, doing what they are supposed to do: ferreting out critical information from foreign leaders, searching for paths to common action and struggling with the right amount of pressure to apply on allies and adversaries. And in most cases, the villain is not Washington, but foreign leaders escaping common action with cowardice and hypocrisy.
Washington needs China’s help in bolstering sanctions against Iran, and China balks for fear of jeopardizing its oil and gas flow from that country. The Obama team arranges for Saudi Arabia to guarantee any loss in supply to China. If the world wants to slow or even prevent Iran’s march to nuclear weaponry, this is a key path to doing so.
The U.S. discovers that North Korea has manufactured medium-range missiles and is trying to deliver them to Iran through China. The Obama team discovers this, informs Beijing and asks Beijing to stop the transfer. Beijing declines. Really creepy.
Yemen’s leader takes public responsibility for American missile attacks against al-Qaeda in Yemen. He wants to diminish the power of these terrorists, as do Americans and most others in the world. The “lie” by the Yemeni president is a harmless way to get a critical job done — that is, the job of fighting international terrorism. WikiLeaks tears away the political cover of Yemen’s leaders.
No country has anywhere near as much influence over nutty North Korea as China. So, U.S. diplomats are searching desperately to figure out Chinese thinking about North Korea in order to compose a plan for avoiding war on the Korean Peninsula. So, the Wikileakers expose some Chinese leaders who are actually trying to give us some insight into Chinese thinking about North Korean craziness. They won’t do that again soon.
Time and again, as one actually reads these cables, one has to be heartened by the professionalism and the insights of U.S. diplomats. What are they doing? They are not lying, and U.S. leaders are not lying. They are actually, believe it or not, trying to solve problems. That seriousness of purpose and the professionalism to execute it is what jumps out at you in these materials.
So, the naïve say, it’s good to show the effectiveness of our diplomats. Give me a break. Ask any American diplomat to choose between looking intelligent in leaked cables and making progress toward avoiding war.
None of this is to say that there should not be leaks, or that the press should not pursue classified information that is necessary or very helpful to a sensible public debate on policy. If a U.S. administration is lying, or distorting the facts, or telling one story to the public and another to itself, then by all means, let’s have it out in public. If the U.S. government is concocting intelligence in order to justify wars, let’s hope an enterprising reporter finds it out for the rest of us.
But the WikiLeaks dump is not about providing essential information to Americans or to others — information they need for serious policy discussion. This massive trashing by WikiLeaks of a legitimate effort by the U.S. government to preserve confidentiality is the very least a shame and at the most, a crime.
Leslie H. Gelb, a former New York Times columnist and senior government official, is author of Power Rules: How Common Sense Can Rescue American Foreign Policy (HarperCollins 2009). A longer version of this essay first appeared in The Daily Beast, http://www.thedailybeast.com. © 2010 RTST, Inc.
Posted by Bill in barack obama, Obama, Politics, Uncategorized.
Tags: Arlington, Arlington National Ceremony, barack obama, Bill Clinton, Bush, Dan Quayle, Democrat, Dick Cheney, dubya, facebook, Ford, George Bush, George dubya Bush, George W Bush, Jimmy Carter, Memorial Day, Nixon, Obama, president, Reagan, Republican, Veteran, Veterans
The other day I violated one of the unofficial Facebook rules– I posted a comment in response to someone’s message in which I disagreed with that person’s message. Facebook is kind of a warm and fuzzy place– it has a like button that you can click if you like someone’s post but there is no dislike button. It is generally understood that even if you disagree with what someone says in a post, you don’t say so in a comment. However, I had someone post a negative comment in response to a cause I signified support for a few weeks ago, so when she posted a petition yesterday about Obama’s Memorial Day plans and added a comment expounding on Obama’s disrespect for men in uniform and his betrayal of his duty to his country, I felt it only fair to ask her if she had thought the same thing when Dubya handed off the duty to Dick Cheney in 2007? Or when Bush I handed it off to Dan Quayle in 1992. Or when Reagan handed it off to his Deputy Secretary of Defense in 1983? I also pointed out to her that Obama is NOT skipping the Memorial Day ceremony, but will be giving a speech at the national cemetery in Illinois on Memorial Day. I asked her if it only counted as doing his duty if he was in Washington.
Not surprisingly, the comments in response to mine have been very supportive of her and not of me– after all, I did break a FB rule. One guy angrily told me that he had noticed that I only referenced Republican presidents; evidently he was unaware that the last Democratic president before Obama, Bill Clinton, spent all eight of his Memorial Days at Arlington National Cemetery. However, in the spirit of fairness, I will note that Jimmy Carter apparently did not visit Arlington on Memorial Day, in 1978. Ford attended both Memorial Days while he was in office but Nixon apparently did not attend at all.
The friend on whom I posted the comment responded thoughtfully and admitted that she didn’t like Obama, didn’t think he was qualified for office, thought he was a poor president, and added that the fact that his predecessors had done the same thing did not excuse him.
I appreciated the thoughtfulness of her response, however, my point to her, which apparently was lost, is that Obama is NOT disrespecting our soldiers. On Memorial Day he WILL be attending and speaking at a ceremony at a national cemetery. However he will be attending the ceremony at the national cemetery in Illinois and not in Virginia. Here is my problem– once again the talk show pundits are seizing on a non-issue and working people up into a frenzy about something that isn’t even true. If you don’t think Obama is a good president– fine. I thought Dubya was a lousy president. If you want to criticize Obama for his policies, fine. I thought Dubya’s policies sucked. But don’t criticize Obama for disrespecting American troops and Veterans by claiming he is ditching them on Memorial Day to vacation in his home town when it just isn’t true. That only hurts your own credibility, and makes me seriously question your motives for criticizing Obama in other areas.
Posted by Bill in barack obama, Current Events, Obama, Politics, Right wing, Uncategorized.
Tags: arizona, Arizona House, arizona legislature, Arizona Senate, barack obama, birth certificate, birther, birthers, citizen, citizenship, dubya, Freedom of information request, George Bush, George W Bush, Hawaii, Hawaii Bureau of Vital Statistics, legislation, legislature, national guard controversy, Obama, obama birth certificate, president, presidential candidates, US citizen
The State of Arizona, in an attempt to prove that Texas does NOT have the dumbest legislature in the USA, is considering a bill requiring presidential candidates to submit documents to the Arizona Secretary of State proving that they satisfy the constitutional requirements to be president. The Arizona House passed the measure on Wednesday on a 31 to 29 vote and now it goes to the Arizona Senate for approval.
Personally I don’t think the bill goes far enough. Why not pass a bill requiring candidates to provide proof of EVERY claim they make? After all, there is more evidence for Obama being a US citizen than there is for George Dubya Bush having served his full six years in the National Guard.
Wouldn’t that be something if every time a presidential candidate opened his/her mouth to speak, s/he had to provide proof that what s/he said was true? Would SOME candidates have a hard time with that? You betcha!
Let’s face, there is nothing in this world that will satisfy the whackos who insist that Obama is not a US Citizen.Countless media organizations have rebutted claims that Obama is not a US citizen, every judicial body that has looked at the matter has concluded that Obama is a US citizen, the Hawaiian government officials who are in charge of birth certificates have stated that his Hawaiian birth certificate is valid, but the whackos are determined NOT to be satisfied. In fact, they are so busy deluging the State of Hawaii with requests for Obama’s birth certificate– up to 50 a month– that the state is considering a law of its own– one that will allow it to ignore repeated requests to produce the document.
Actually, I think the State of Hawaii is missing a golden opportunity here. Obama has already made copies of his birth certificate freely available on the internet. If these right-wing idiots insist on demanding a copy of a document that is freely available on the internet, go ahead and provide it for them– at $500 a pop. Fifty requests a month at $500 each– Hawaii could go a long way towards balancing its budget on that kind of money. As a wise person once said– you can’t do anything about the idiots in the world, so you might as well make money off them.
Posted by Bill in barack obama, Current Events, health care reform, Obama, Politics, Right wing, Uncategorized.
Tags: assassination, baby killer, bart stupak, birthers, civility, congress, conservative, conservatives, fix news, glenn beck, Health Plan, hufington post, joe wilson, joseph de maistre, liberal, liberals, N-word, Obama, Politics, protestors, Randy Neugebauer, right wingnuts, Sarah Palin, Tea Party, Texas, twitter, wingnuts, you lie
I love living in Texas for many reasons– if nothing else it’s always good for a laugh– but after listening to the furor that has arisen since the passage of the Health Plan, it’s enough to make me long to live in a place where the sun hasn’t scalded everyone’s brain. It can be dangerous, however, to make generalizations based on where people live, and it is becoming ever apparent that Texans are not the only ones in need of an icepack on their heads.
Seriously, folks, when did it become okay for one member of Congress to yell “Baby Killer” at another member of Congress on the floor of the House, as the GOP Congressman from Texas, Randy Neugebauer shouted at Bart Stupak? When did it become okay for crowds to scream the N-word at minority members of Congress? When did it become okay for another member of Congress, Representative Joe Wilson, to shout, “You lie!” to the President of the United States while he was making a speech to a joint session of Congress? When did it become okay for people to go on Twitter and call for the assassination of our president?
I have to wonder what is truly behind this increasing rancor. We’ve had political disagreements in this country before, but it’s been a long time since we’ve seen anything like this. Certainly there were plenty of ticked off people when Dubya was president, but it never rose to this level of discord. Probably the closest thing we have had to this were the war protests of the late sixties and seventies– if we’d had Internet then, we might have gotten out of Viet Nam much sooner than we did.
Much of this must be attributed to the instantaneousness of the Internet– and the anonymity. You can hide behind a fake identity, set up Facebook and Twitter accounts and whip people into all kinds of a frenzy without anybody ever knowing who you actually are. Not only that, but you don’t even have to tell the truth because it’s real hard to sue for libel or slander for things that are said on that vast frontier of lawlessness that is the Internet. Do you really think that the whackos who claim Obama isn’t a US citizen would ever have gotten a foothold if they couldn’t send their lies to everyone with a working email address?
And there are people who have a vested interest in maintaining this frenzy– the Fox Talk Show hosts wouldn’t have near the ratings they do now if they came on the air and told everyone, “Hey, Obama is really a good guy and even though we don’t agree with him on everything, we know he wants what is best for this country.” If Sarah Palin got up and told everybody the truth about issues such as the so-called Obama death squads, she wouldn’t have her lucrative new contract with Fox TV as well as crowds of people urging her to “Run Sarah run!”.
And let’s face it, these guys have a ready audience because the conservatives out there are just plain mad. They’ve been mad for a long time. In fact, I think they might have been born mad. They were mad when Clinton was elected, and they got madder when Obama was elected. They are so mad that they have forgotten that other people have a right to think differently and vote differently than they, which is what the Liberals did in the last election because they were mad as well. The trouble is, Liberals just don’t get mad as effectively as Conservatives.
What we’ve got is a mob– a large group of crazies who are feeding on each other and getting whipped into a frenzy by savvy manipulators who are out for their own personal gain. As Deep Throat once said, “Follow the money.”
There is plenty of room for honest disagreement in this country, but when did disagreement get to the point where we can’t even listen to each other? Where we can’t accept that other people have different views that may be as valid as their own? Okay, we get that you don’t like the Health Plan. We get that you are afraid that it is leading to socialism or that you think people should not be required to buy health care or that you think people should take care of themselves and not expect a handout from the government. We disagree, but does that mean it is okay for you to stand up and yell “N—–!” at one of us?
Whether you like it or not, the Health Plan has passed, and as the Liberals who hate the Faith Based Initiative and the Iraq War have learned, it’s real hard to stuff the crickets back in the jar after it’s been opened. (Those conservatives who have been trying to get rid of the Education Department certainly ought to know that!) I suggest that those of you who are opposed to the Health Plan come to the table to discuss what comes next in a rationale manner rather than throwing colossal temper tantrums and acting like two-year-olds. It’s here. Now you need to figure out how to deal with it.
Posted by Bill in barack obama, Current Events, Obama, Politics.
Tags: barack obama, Beyonce Knowles, Jimmy Carter, kanye west, MTV awards, Obama, president, racism, Taylor Swift
In the wake of the furor over Kanye West’s actions at the MTV Video Awards- you know, when he grabbed the mike from Taylor Swift during her acceptance speech and gave a shout out to Beyonce Knowles- we have some refreshing honesty from the only man in the world who could probably get away with saying publicly what we all were thinking privately.
Obama calls Kanye West a jackass
I don’t think I’ve heard anyone disagree with Obama on this– not even those critics who hate him so much they can’t accept the fact that they were born in the same coutnry as Barack Obama.
And here’s something else, too. There have been a number of accusations that Obama’s critics are racists. Most notably former President Jimmy Carter came out and said that the opposition to Obama is grounded in a deep seated racism.
“I think that an overwhelming proportion of the intensely demonstrated animosity toward President Barack Obama is based on the fact that he is a black man, he’s African-American,” Carter told NBC television.
Obama, however, doesn’t see it that way. According to White House Spokesperson Robert Gibbs,
“The president does not believe that the criticism comes based on the color of his skin. We understand that people have disagreements with some of the decisions that we’ve made and some of the extraordinary actions that had to be undertaken by this administration.”
Funny, I don’t think I’ve heard a single one of Obama’s critics disagree with him on this statement either. I guess they don’t disagree with Obama on absolutely everything.
Posted by Bill in barack obama, Obama, Politics.
Tags: civility, extremists, internet, Obama, Politics, right-wing
There’s been a lot of talk in the press about the decline of civility and about whether or not there are more whackos now than there used to be. It’s true that emotions are certainly running high in the country right now, as we saw when the nutters, who have been frothing at the mouth since Obama was elected, went off the deep end over Obama’s proposed speech to American’s school children.
I don’t know, however, that there are more whackos than there ever used to be. What I think has happened is that thanks to the internet, the world has become a much smaller place and the nutters have been able to reach out and connect with each other in ways they have never been able to before.
If you look back, there have always been people who were just a little “different.” Every neighborhood had its resident eccentric, its Boo Radley, as it were. The house your parents told you not to go to during Trick or Treat or the neighbor who kept your ball when you and your friends were careless enough to hit it over the fence into his yard.
These people were usually isolated, and because they didn’t know anyone who shared their delusions or their paranoia or their offbeat views, they were generally pretty harmless as long as they were left alone.
The internet has changed all that because now all of these people who thought they were all alone have suddenly found other people who also thought they were all alone, and they’ve discovered that they have things in common.
Suddenly they are no longer alone and they are feeding off of each other. They are sharing experiences and stories and myths and legends. Urban legends have taken on a new life with the easy spreadability afforded by email, list servs and forums. You can find absolutely everything on the net– whatever your beliefs you can find somebody, somewhere who shares them.
Now that the nutters know that there are others who feel the same way, they are finding that there is strength in numbers. In addition, they are picking up new fans as people who do not necessarily share the more extreme beliefs relate to some of the more innocuous sentiments.
Obama’s election is a testament to the power of the internet as the grass roots movement that played such a huge role in his election capitalized on the social media available on the internet to spread his message of hope.
So now all we have to do is find a way to harness the power of the internet to counteract the whackos, and relate to the complacent middle of the roaders. We know it can be done. We just have to do it again.
Posted by Bill in barack obama, Obama, Politics.
Tags: bailout, barack obama, dubya, economic policies, economic policy, freedomworks, george dubya bush. george bush, government bailout, government spending, healthcare, healthcare reform, march, national debt, Obama, protest marsh, taxpayers, tea party protests, Washington DC
So depending on who you listen to, 60,000 – 70,000 people (according to a statement issued by ABC News disputing claims that it had earlier stated 1 to 1.5 million) or 1 -1.5 million (the number held to by Freedomworks, the group that organized the event and a group that has every incentive to stick with the higher number no matter the facts) marched on Washington to protest government spending.
Protesters were there ostensibly to complain about government spending, although one has to wonder where all these people were when George Dubya Bush was building up the deficit and sinking the country further into debt. They sure weren’t protesting government spending then!
One brilliant guy, Richard Brigle said health care needs to be reformed, but not according to Obama’s plan. “My grandkids are going to be paying for this. It’s going to cost too much money that we don’t have.” Sweetie, I got news for you– your grandkids are going to be paying for Dubya’s war for a LONG time. And they’re going to be paying for the government bailout that had to be enacted because of Dubya’s economic policies for a LONG time.
There’s an old saying– if you are not part of the solution you are part of the problem. Let’s hear some ideas from the other side about how to fix the health care system. We know what they are against (anything proposed by Obama.) Let’s hear what they are for.
Posted by Bill in Obama, Politics.
Tags: barack obama, civil discourse, civility, congress, democrats, health care, joe wilson, joint session, Obama, Politics, president, president's speech, speech
“You lie!”
Two words. Two small words. A challenge to be sure. An insult.
And in uttering them Joe Wilson, a lawmaker from South Carolina may have unwittingly ensured that health care reform will happen.
The last few months have seen a real break down in civility in the American political process. Not that it’s ever been particularly civil, but since Obama took office we have seen a huge deterioration of political civility unlike any we’ve seen before. From town hall meetings that look more like a barroom brawl to the lies and claims about senior citizen death panels, it’s enough to make you wonder if everyone remembers that we are actually all living in the indivisible United States.
What is impossible not to see is the fact that an incredible amount of antipathy and hatred has been focused against one man, Barack Obama, the President of the United States, and I am truly at a loss to explain why. After all, his detractors keep claiming it’s not because he is black, so it surely MUST be something else.
Obama faced uncivility and rudeness long before he took office. When Obama visited a North Carolina barbecue joint in late October, a woman at the back of the restaurant yelled, “Socialist, socialist, socialist — get out of here!” Another woman actually refused to shake hands with him. Just stop and picture this for a moment. Picture walking into your local Tony Roma’s or Spring Creek Barbecue and as you do, a voice from the back yells, loudly enough for all to hear, “Socialist! Socialist! Get out of here!” Despite this you continue to walk into the restaurant. You go from table to table and stop to speak to the folks sitting there. As you extend your hand to one woman, you politely ask, “How are you ma-am?” and she pulls her hand away and refuses to shake yours.
Can you imagine that? Can you imagine the guts it took to walk into that restaurant? Yet, Obama not only went into the restaurant, but he went around and spoke to each of the diners- at least the ones who WOULD talk to him. Blazing Saddles anyone?
Since Obama was elected, we’ve been treated to the harangues by the birthers, a group of nitwits who insist that Obama is not actually a US citizen and have actually tried to file lawsuits declaring his election invalid. Earlier this week we saw a protester greeting the presidential motorcade at a school where Obama had gone to speak. The protester held a sign saying, “Mr President, stay away from our kids.” And now we have a lawmaker who broke the decorum of an address to a joint session of Congress to directly challenge the President. “You lie!”
Can you imagine sitting in a meeting with your boss and the CEO with all of the stockholders of your company watching? Imagine your CEO talking, laying out proposals for the upcoming year and all of the sudden you just feel compelled to burst out with, “You lie!”
What on earth would ever make ANYONE think that this kind of behavior is permissible? Sadly, a lot of people not only seem to think it is okay, but they welcome it. GOP leaders have been quick to criticize Representative Joe Wilson, but Wilson’s SC constituency had some different opinions to offer:
“He’s the only one who has guts in that whole place. He’ll get re-elected in a landslide,” said John Roper, an insurance agent, as he sat among patrons at a diner near Columbia. ~ AP Yahoo News
However, the remark seems to have galvanized Democratic lawmakers who seem, finally, to have realized that enough is enough. Nobody likes a bully, and Wilson’s remark, combined with images of hysterical right-wingers demonizing the President for daring to tell kids to stay in school and study hard, makes it clear that Obama’s opponents are just, plain and simple, bullies.
Now the Dems have finally found their voice- and their spine. They’ve finally realized that they are in the same party with Obama and are vowing to pass health care reform with or without the GOP. The Dems are voicing their support for the president and speaking out against the rudeness. They are finally realizing that civil discourse does not mean that anything goes.
It’s about time.
Posted by Bill in Obama, Politics.
Tags: controversy, Education, Obama, Religious Right, Secular Government
It is now the day after President Obama’s education speech. Enough time has passed to evaluate the true effects of his speech. And much to my surprise the Christian and Conservative Hard Right were right. An initial report by a panel of eminent sociologists, psychologists, anthropologists, historians, and political scientists shows that the predicted deleterious effects of his speech have rapidly manifested themselves in our children. According to this report, out of all the students who listened to President Obama’s education speech:
– 63% are now reading the works of Marx and Lenin and are calling each other comrade. When you look at the age groupings you find that the younger the child, the more pronounced this effect. Among 1st graders 79% of those who listened were affected this way.
– 64% are now atheist. This group largely overlaps the above group. There is however a gap of 1% between those students who are now atheist and those who are communists. This 1% consists of atheist capitalists. The experts surmise that this group, although obviously affected by President Obama’s speech, were not as strongly affected by it due to their having read Adam Smith’s On The Wealth of Nations at home.
– 12 % are now Satanists. According to reports from school officials and local police they are now actively searching for virgins to sacrifice to Lucifer. Fortunately they seem to be having difficulties with this due to their tendency to rape all the virgins they find.
– Another problem for the Satanists is that there seems to be a significant decrease in the number of virgins after the speech. School officials reported widespread orgies immediately after President Obama’s speech. Also according to reports just now coming in, those students who listened to President Obama’s speech got together this morning before school and engaged in massive orgies. It promises to be the new way to start the day for our students and lends a whole new meaning to “See You at the Pole”.
– 82% of the students turned gay. This effect, though, may not be permanent as it was noted that during the orgies very few students had sex with one sex exclusively.
– 99% of the students visited the local Planned Parenthood centers for abortions. Many appeared disappointed when told that they were either prepubescent, not pregnant, or male. I understand that there is now a petition making the rounds demanding the right to an abortion without regards to pregnancy status or gender. – On the downside for Planned Parenthood and the plus side for the Religious Hard Right the experts are predicting a significant and substantial drop in the use of birth control. It remains to be seen if the significant and substantial increase in abortions will make up for Planned Parenthood’s losses in contraceptive income.
– 83% of the students have turned black. Those that were already black turned even blacker. This has obviously caused great consternation in their families with many of them having to discontinue going to their church and becoming home churched instead.
– A rather surprising finding is that the whole population of Kenya is now claiming to have been born in Hawaii. It is not sure if this is related to President Obama’s education speech or not. Research is ongoing.
Posted by Bill in Obama, Politics.
Tags: idiots, Obama, obama speech, protesters, school speech
Well President Obama has given his much feared speech, and not a single white child turned black as a result. Nor did any children convert to socialism or Islam, and not a single one of them turned into a native of Kenya. I haven’t even heard of a single one who told his parents to support Obama’s health proposal as a result of listening to the speech. I did, however, hear of more than a few kids who said they were going to start doing their homework after listening to the president tell them how important it is:
At Thomas Jefferson High School in Auburn, Wash., a racially and economically diverse district outside Seattle, sophomores listened attentively to the address. Fifteen-year-old Ariana Steele said the message connected with her.
“When you see someone of such power saying what your parents say or your teachers have said, like all your life, it really makes it more powerful to you and it really makes you want to try more,” she said.
And William Geist, a San Francisco fifth-grader who likes to sleep late, listened closely to Obama’s story of studying with his mother at 4:30 a.m.
“Now since I heard this speech, I’m like, `Man, I’ve got to get up early in the morning. I’ve got to get ready for school. I’ve got to do this,'” William said. ~ Associated Press
Hysterical parents across the US heaved a sigh of relief and many of them backed off their earlier rhetoric. “It was perfectly innocuous and a praiseworthy message,” Missouri Lt. Governor Peter Kinder, who originally opposed the speech, said Tuesday.
Honestly folks, what did you THINK he was going to say? Did you expect him to sign your kids up for membership in the National Urban League or the American Communist Party? As I have said more than once since this whole brouhaha started, you folks just need to get a grip.
Yet, despite the fact that the White house released the text of the speech a day early so that anybody who cared as much about what he was going to say to their kids as they claimed could look at it, despite the fact that no less a personage than Laura Bush came out in favor of the speech (now there’s a subversive element if there ever was one!), despite the fact that former Speaker of the House Newt Gingrich has urged every child to read the Obama’s remarks, some people just could not get over their sour grapes:
“They don’t need to be told by the president what their responsibilities are. It’s the parents’ responsibility to teach them that, not the government,” said Ryan Christensen, a carpet cleaner who asked that his 10-year-old daughter be pulled from a fifth-grade class watching the speech in Caldwell, Idaho. ~ Associated Press
Now there’s someone who was just LOOKING for a reason to oppose the speech.
And finally, to the group of people who greeted the presidential motorcade when it arrived at Wakefield High School in Arlington, Va, particularly the person who carried a sign reading: “Mr. President, stay away from our kids,” have you lost your mind? I hope someday you are able to explain to your kids about the idiocy and ill manners you displayed today, because it sure doesn’t make any sense to me.
Bill
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Bill
Swimming Kangaroo Books
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