In the 24 hour news world, domestic abuse, particularly athlete and
celebrity domestic abuse is the theme of the week. It's likely to
remain so until the abuse stories become so minor it becomes necessary
to manufacture them or until some other chew toy is tossed to the media
by circumstances. What that will be, which of many will be picked up by CNN or Fox as the gonfallon of the next cycle is hard to predict.
Today's prime candidate for our next obsession is the video clip of
Obama exiting a helicopter and saluting the marine guard with a cup of
coffee in his hand. The local Fox outlet took time out from covering
wars and calamities and domestic abuse stories to discuss the implied
disrespect for the people who sacrifice for "our freedom" or get dressed
up to help the president off a helicopter, which ever comes first.
One
characteristic of the news in our time is that we get enough
information to prop up the theme of the story but never nearly enough to
let you speculate on how it fits into the big picture. Surprise
surprise, presidents saluting the military is rather new to be calling
it a tradition. I believe it started with Reagan, who of course served
WW II in Hollywood. Some nations forbid saluting while "uncovered" or
not wearing a hat.
According to Marine protocol:
" Marines do not render the hand salute when out of uniform or when uncovered."
Whether
or not an "uncovered" or out of uniform president, or any other
civilian is required to return such a salute is open to interpretation. There is no universal
rule and one must remember commuting by helicopter is as common as
driving to work or taking the bus is for the rest of us -- not much of a
public ceremony. There is no rule about doing something because Reagan's PR people told Reagan to do it.
"The gesture is of course quite wrong: Such a salute has always required the wearing of a uniform. It represents an exaggeration of the president's military role."
Wrote author and historian John Lukacs wrote in The New York Times in 2003 when Bush was in the White house and it was un-American to criticize the Warpresident..
It
does seem that saluting with a cup of coffee seems a bit thoughtless or
impolitic, or while talking on the telephone -- even if you're talking
to Putin or scheduling an attack on Syria, but that alone doesn't
sufficiently serve the cause of providing fodder for the Obamabashers.
We have to call it a "latte" because coffee with milk in it isn't as
funny or as easy a target for scorn. We must not mention or take note
that when Bush saluted with a dog under his arm or when Eisenhower
didn't salute at all we didn't melt into a puddle of contempt on the
floor. We must not question the fact that
the president is a civilian and
doesn't have a uniform to wear even if he is a commander in chief or
ask whether he's subject to military protocols. This is Obama we're
talking about and this is the man we must impugn and impede and insult
whether the nation is at peril. or not.
A wise and very prehistoric Saurischean once said: “Even a minute wasted on chowderheads and ninnyhammers is a minute of your life that you will never get back.” Thus far, I have wasted far too much of my time on petty little chowderheads and refuse to waste a minute more.
ReplyDeleteThis week was the last straw! This time, my argument is NOT with our conservative and libertarian friends but with at least one or more of our longstanding liberal friends who let chowderhead groupies take over their discussion boards.
Not just any chowderhead, but at least one self-avowed racist, anti-Semitic, and white supremacist chowderhead! How anyone can be so blind and IGNORE those words! A “liberal exchange of ideas” is not my idea of MORAL CLARITY – especially when a partisan hate-monger wants nothing less than your complete surrender … or your demise! How can anyone be so dumb fuck naïve!
How many times have I reminded our liberal friends that off-topic bullshit disrupts and hijacks discussion boards. No, I don’t need a fucking specimen from their bell jar of groupies as an exemplar of chowderheadedness!
No, I am NOT telling them how to run their goddamn blogs either! I am telling them that I will not be party to BULLSHIT. Therefore, I choose to stay away.
Quoth the cephalopod: “Nevermore!”
Wasn't that the Raven?
ReplyDeleteAnyway (O)CT(O)PUS, isn't the best course one of just ignoring the chowderheads and ninnyhammers? Nothing is gained by withdrawing, for certain not on an extended timeline.
Perhaps it's time for a single malt Scotch and quiet reflective time?
I'll see your single malt scotch and raise you two (complements of the cephalopod, of course).
DeleteThose who take petty potshots at the President will do so no matter what he does. For me, a cup of coffee in the President’s hand tells a different story: One of sleepless nights, extreme stress, and a caffeine boost just to get him through the day. Only an opportunistic partisan hack will advance such a scornful narrative – based on sarcasm, petty sneer and jeer, defamations, deliberate errors of omission, outright lies and deception, and willful tone-deafness in the face overwhelming evidence. I am still burning with rage over this comment posted by one of Shaw’s trolls:
ReplyDeleteSKUD: “First he [President Obama] aids the terror group ISIS/ISIL by advising them when they would have no opposition [;] then he does air strikes against them because his poll numbers have tanked.”
Here, in brief, is my response [diatribe]:
--------------------------------------
“Little do you know: I HAVE A DOG IN THIS FIGHT! My daughter is a high-ranking career officer serving in the military. Two Bronze Stars, Seven Distinguished Service Citations, a Bachelors and a Masters Degree, and fluent in four languages, she has spent her entire adult life in service to her country and is currently serving in the Persian Gulf. I RESENT YOUR PETTY DISRESPECT OF OUR COMMANDER-IN-CHIEF DURING A TIME OF WAR. You see, Mr. Skud of limited range and zero accuracy, when you attack the Commander-in-Chief, you also attack the military personnel serving under him – who are protecting YOUR SORRY ASS from terrorists.
Little do you know of her many sacrifices – the numerous deployments to Saudi Arabia, Iraq, Kuwait, and Qatar; the roadside bomb that narrowly missed killing her but did kill her friends and colleagues; and the recent loss of one of her closest colleagues, Major General Harold Greene.
Little do you know of the sacrifices made by the families of military personnel – the missing person at every holiday dinner table, and the dreaded stranger in uniform whom you hope will never come knocking at your door.
As recently as two days ago, I received a letter from my daughter. She has lost 20 pounds working 18 to 20 hours shifts to protect YOUR SORRY ASS from terrorists! Meanwhile, the only “comment” from a miserable excuse for humanity such as you: Politically bad optics over a cup of coffee in the President’s hand as he salutes the guard. Maybe the President NEEDS THAT GODDAM FUCKING CUP OF COFFEE, but assholes such as you never think of the stresses borne by the President, the stresses borne by troops in the field, or the stresses borne by their families - as long as assholes such as you get in your petty potshots, your stale talking points, and your unrelenting sneer and jeer.
Now, get lost! Go away. And GO TO HELL!
-----------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Too bad I can’t get my tentacles around his miserable neck!
Welcome to hell.
DeleteI'm sure he had his tongue up Bush's ass for 8 years, if you can pardon the vulgarity. There is an unending supply of these people, petty, stupid, ignorant and with a justified knowledge of their worthlessness who try to compensate by joining hate groups like ISIS and the Republican party. If we could see him alone, in person, without his back-up group in brown shirts, he'd be afraid to say these things, because he's a damn coward and a hopeless loser looking for people to blame it on and the support of other losers.
Not being anything like a psychologist, I don't know how insanity is defined these days and outside of therapists offices, I don't think it matters. What passes for right wing politics is insane and in our brave new world, the ravings of idiots and lunatics is not restricted to soapbox speakers in public parks, it's absolutely everywhere and it hovers around every story and circumstance like a baboon chorus, barking and snarking and throwing shit at the audience. Things like twitter and the blogs have given a voice to every turd in the cesspool and it's only going to get worse. It's as though the result of free speech is to poison itself.
Does Democracy work or is it self-destructive? I think I know the answer. I think it only works with an intelligent, rational, informed and altruistic electorate who vote. We have perhaps a hundred or two on a good day and even then, some of those are whipped into a frenzy of emotional involvement with some single issue or another to the point where you can't argue with them either. So many of us -- so many high-minded uncompromising, self confident Liberals stay home on election day and we let the dogs eat our lunch because it's not free-range, organic, non gmo, low fat, no carb, gluten free and ideologically pure. We're the majority but we might as well not be.
What can you do? No one was every argued out of assholery, and hate is an addiction which is hard to cure. I can understand the rage and I share it, but I've begun to embrace the hopelessness and nihilism and to suspect that the best I can do is find a refuge somewhere to live out my remaining days.
I find this as big a deal as Jimmy Carter's cardigan, Obama's own flag pin or lack of it....
Deletein other words, NOT.
I'd feel no differently about Obama or any other president, even if they chose to wear "Napoleon Dynamite" T shirts and do jazz-hands every time anyone looked at them. It simply doesn't matter.
Anyway, as for "It does seem that saluting with a cup of coffee seems a bit thoughtless or impolitic, or while talking on the telephone"... he needs to drive with holding a cup of coffee and a cell phone, like every other red-blooded American!
Sure, it does indeed look like he's absorbed with other thoughts and isn't paying much attention to the pomp and circumstance the news media would like him to or the pageantry the Republicans like so much. He's going to work and he goes to work every day and so much of our future hangs on what he does when not playing president on TV.
DeleteBut PLEEZE don't drive while talking on the phone or drinking coffee! the ass you save might be mine.