I was listening to the radio just a little while ago (Beyond the Beltway was on) and the host, Bruce DuMont, was commenting on some stories in the news today. He read through part of an article in today’s New York Times…
On the afternoon he held the eighth meeting of his Afghanistan review, President Obama arrived in the White House Situation Room ruminating about war. He had come from Arlington National Cemetery, where he had wandered among the chalky white tombstones of those who had fallen in the rugged mountains of Central Asia.
How much their sacrifice weighed on him that Veterans Day last month, he did not say. But his advisers say he was haunted by the human toll as he wrestled with what to do about the eight-year-old war. Just a month earlier, he had mentioned to them his visits to wounded soldiers at the Army hospital in Washington. “I don’t want to be going to Walter Reed for another eight years,” he said then.
I got a good laugh out of that. I seriously don’t think that’s something he’ll need to worry about.
Of course, once he’s out of office in three years & change (that’s change I can believe in!) he’s free to visit Walter Reed as a private citizen, but realistically, how often will that happen? How often did it happen prior to him being elected to the Presidency?
And one more thing to note in my never-ending quest to find fault in everything President Barack Hussein Obamma (mmm, mmm, MMM!) does, his speech last week not only managed to severely tick off his leftist base, he also preempted the broadcast of A Charlie Brown Christmas. Way to wreck Christmas, dude.
I give you props for honesty.
While my prior comment may seem like a joke (a backhanded insult?), it’s not. When Bush was in office, I was the same as you — he could have carried children out of a burning building, and I would have found fault with it.
At the time, I had no perspective. I truly thought everything he did was pure evil. But, looking back after a year, I was too hard on him. My anger tainted everything thought I ever had about him, and I looked past anything valuable he ever did. History will be kinder to him than I was.
I suspect you’re at the same place with Obama. At least you have some self-realization about it.
Thanks for falling for the bait. ;o)
The fact that you’re calling it “bait” doesn’t make it any less true.
Do you really think I’ve been too hard on Obama in the same way you were hard on Bush? I don’t think so, and frankly, I find it a bit insulting being told that I’m the same as you were in this regard. Because I don’t have anything good to say about what Obama has done since he was inaugurated may make it seem that I’m being hard on him, but couldn’t it be sincere disagreement on principled grounds? Because that’s exactly what it is.
You asked me once whether I could think of anything he’s done that I could support; I couldn’t give an answer. I took your question as a challenge, and have done some soul searching since then. If you were to ask me the same question today, I’d still be at a loss for an answer, but I can say with some confidence that neither anger or hate taints my perspective in judging his performance. I guess my problem (if you could call it that) is that I have firmly held beliefs about how things ought to be done, and much of what Obama & his cohorts in the House & Senate are doing runs 180 degrees counter to what I believe to be right for the country. Anger & hate don’t come into play; just vehement disagreement. What I write about here may come across with a tinge of snarkiness, but that’s just for fun.
Let me throw that same question back at you; what has he done since his inauguration that you can support without qualification?