05 September 2011

President of Some of the People

The stunt President Obama tried to pull last week requesting to speak to Congress on the same night as the Republican debate was obnoxious but shouldn't surprise us.

When House Speaker Boehner graciously said "no" due to technical difficulties and offered him a different night, the talking heads called it "unprecedented" that Obama was turned down.

What is truly "unprecedented" is how this president holds anyone who holds ideas other than his own in open contempt. We've seen this contempt not only this last week but also throughout his presidency. Jonathan Alter, of Newsweek, quotes Obama calling the Tea Party the pejorative term 'tea-baggers'.

We may even remember as a candidate he made denigrating remarks about blue collar workers.
Referring to working-class voters in old industrial towns decimated by job losses, the presidential hopeful said: "They get bitter, they cling to guns or religion or antipathy to people who aren't like them or anti-immigrant sentiment or anti-trade sentiment as a way to explain their frustrations."

He went on to apologize without a real apology.
Obama initially reacted to the resultant media firestorm over the weekend by trying to stand by his comments. But he later apologised, saying: "If I worded things in a way that made people offended, I deeply regret that."

He didn't regret what he had said, he regretted the way he "worded things".

Watching Press Secretary Carney last week explain away how the President chose September 7th showed the contempt by describing the debate as "one of many" that's on "one channel of many".

All of this is obnoxious and playing petty political games. While it is true that the President is of one of the political parties - he is also supposed to be the President of all Americans. By attempting to schedule yet another one of his speeches during the Republican debate he showed us how much he really cares about those little people who would be forced to choose between him and those Republicans who are vying for his job.

1 comment:

Anonymous said...

Doesn't matter which day he's speaking, I won't be watching him 'cause I don't do reruns,