I wish I could pass on this latest Obama "stink burger", I really do, there are so many of them, they come at us fast and furious. I would do nothing more all day, but cut and paste presidential venom, if I could stop paying attention to them for a minute or two. This one, however, stuck in my craw, a little bit. Is it too much to ask the president to postpone a fundraiser?
On Wednesday evening, President Obama was being kept up to date on the developments from the mass shooting at Fort Hood while reportedly attending fundraisers for the 2014 election cycle. According to White House spokesman Josh Earnest, Obama is in the loop while at the fundraisers.
Obama will be in Chicago for four and a half hours, and the events have largely been closed to the media, with radio and TV reporters banned from attendance. Only one print reporter will be allowed to provide press pool notes.
The presidency is said to be a bully pulpit, "a position sufficiently conspicuous to provide an opportunity to speak out and be listened to."
This term was coined by President Theodore Roosevelt, who referred to the White House as a "bully pulpit", by which he meant a terrific platform from which to advocate an agenda. Roosevelt famously used the word bully as an adjective meaning "superb" or "wonderful", a more common usage in his time than it is today. (Another expression which survives from this era is "bully for you", synonymous with "good for you".)
By signaling what his
priorities are, at a moment when the attention of the country is fixed on a tragic event, President Obama detracts from the majesty of the office.
8 comments:
Detracts????
There is no majesty in what he does, just what he thinks of himself/
On the bright side, most people think that he's full of shit. Still, almost 40% think that his shit doesn't stink.
Remember his first speech after the first Fort Hood shooting?
Is it too much to ask the president to postpone a fundraiser?
Yes, that is too much to ask.
Lem- gotta disagree with you a bit. The office and its occupant should be humble not majestic. We have gone overboard in the attention we pay to the president and what we expect him to achieve. That over-expectation has gone hand in hand with the expansion of the fed govt. We expect the president to solve all of our problems and that is wrong. Every president needs to get back to the basics and we need to cut the fed govt- we won't until we start to view the president as just another man vs a hero or a savior.
Bully pulpit only applies to a president who considers it central to his job to persuade the American People. On an important issue he wants to argue forcefully for his position to convince them he's right, so they'll fall in behind him. Support him. All this presupposes a modicum of respect for The People. Simply does not apply to Obama. For Obama, and there's nothing special or unusual about him in this respect, the American People is a benighted beast that has to be FORCED into the light. This is also a given at Harvard, at the NY Times and inside Schmendrik's head. No arguments to convince. Pronouncements. An endless stream of pronouncements. And of course the demonization or just plain shitting on any who refuse to see the light.
Icepick:
"Yes, that is too much to ask."
It's all gamed out. The cost-benefit analysis reveals that accruing money is more beneficial to his in-group (the Democratic Party) than the cost (near zero) his non-postponement will make.
Was there fiddling at those Obama fundraisers like at Nero's?
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