Friday, October 30, 2009

About Obama's Staged Photo-Op at Dover Air-Base - UPDATED: Villainous Company Routs Firedoglake!

People often criticize me for "dishonoring" the office of the president (the anarcho-socialist James Webb, for example), but I wrote a respectful post yesterday in response to President Obama's visit to Dover: "Obama Honors Fallen Troops at Dover." Sure, the president's visit was perhaps the worst instance of political grandstanding since taking office, but knowing he's already stabbing our troops in the back, I imagine Obama sleeps better having staged the Dover event.

Nice Deb has the best post on this, "
Obama At Dover Air Force Base: Tribute or Photo-Op?"

It's too awful to think that the President would be so base and cynical as to use the death of these brave and worthy men to prop himself up. One is inclined to hope that he only had the best of intentions.

But one wonders.

Via The Mudville Gazette I noticed that The New York Times had originally reported in their article, Obama Visits Air Base to Honor Returning Dead:

The images and the sentiment of the president’s five-hour trip to Delaware were intended by the White House to convey to the nation that Mr. Obama was not making his Afghanistan decision lightly or in haste.

That line was changed to this:

The image of the commander in chief standing on a darkened tarmac, offering a salute to one of the soldiers, highlighted the poignancy of a decision he is facing.

Greyhawk noted that the President’s approval ratings on Afghanistan have been in free fall:

How to turn the situation around? Some say more troops, some say change strategy, others say withdraw – but someone in the White House got the bright idea that now would be a good time for a photo op.

See also, Right Wing Nut House, "OBAMA’S TIMELY VISIT TO DOVER."

My friend Mark at Snooper's Report tipped me off to a despicable post over at our familiar hate-site, Firedoglake. From Blue Texan, "Disgraceful: In 8 Years, George W. Bush Never Greeted Fallen Troops."

See Mark's post, "
Blue Texan: A Blustering and Bloviating Moron." Also, in response to the administration, "Dover Dead: Obama's Disgrace."

Also, from Cassandra, at
Villainous Company, on the nihilist Firedoglake:

Obama could have visited Dover at any time during the past 8 months - 10, if you take into account the fact that there was no need to have the press document his visit for the TV cameras. But I don't think the facts matter to these people at all. Their hatred is so strong that it blinds them to anything but simmering anger and poisonous contempt. To them, fallen warriors are nothing more than cannon fodder, conscripted against their will - even in death - to fight an obscene war against a President who is no longer in office. Consumed by hatred, they just can't let it go.

What they cannot understand is that unlike Barack Obama, who makes sure the few sops he throws to the military are well documented by the press, George Bush understood our wish not to be used as photo ops. It ought to be simple to understand why George Bush was never photographed at Dover: under George Bush, the press were not allowed at Dover. So there would be no photograph. But more importantly, President Bush understood that the families of the fallen had given enough. The last thing grieving families want is to have a camera or a microphone shoved in their faces; to have legions of Secret Service, White House aides, and other support staff invade an exquisitely private moment that ought to be reserved for those who knew and loved the deceased. Our funerals are not public spectacles, but private observances of grief. Our last President, unlike the antiwar left, understood and respected that.
Read the whole thing. Cassandra includes this video, and adds: "When hatred is so strong that its adherents fear the truth, no factual rebuttal is likely to pierce the wall of lies that surrounds the willfully ignorant. But the truth remains, regardless of their stubborn refusal to admit it":

Also, Cassandra's doing exemplary work with the Project Valor IT fundraiser, "Project Valour IT - Who, What, When, Where, Why (and How!)".

Please join me making a contribution,
here.

**********

UPDATE: Welcome Firedoglake readers, "Attention Bush Apologists: Reagan Greeted Fallen Americans at an Air Force Base, Idiots."

Have a look around, learn something, then behold Cassandra's response, "
Attention, Firedoglake":

Reading, as they say, is fundamental:

It appears my post yesterday got the teabaggers all riled up.

Apparently, their position is that George W. Bush’s refusal to honor fallen Americans as they return to this country for the last time — something his predecessors all did — is proof that a) he loves the troops more than anyone else and; b) because Obama did so, he shamefully, cynically exploited our dead.

As much as I hate to have to interpret plain English for someone who apparently does not know how to read, there are times when such measures are necessary.

Nowhere in Confederate Yankee's, Donald Douglas' or Gateway Pundit's posts (the three Blue Texan linked to "support" his dishonest claim) do any of these bloggers claim that Bush loved the troops any more than any other President.

When the only way you can "win" an argument is to manufacture false claims and then "disprove" them, you're in trouble.

Furthermore, the Dover ban was not in effect when Reagan was President.

It was put in place by President Bush, Sr. in 1991 in response to CNN doing exactly what Firedoglake just did - politicizing the deaths of American soldiers ...

More at the link.

But Blue Texan, you're messin' with the wrong woman, LOL!

17 comments:

  1. Thank you, Donald - both for your defense of President Bush and your support of Valour IT. It's a very worthy cause and we are grateful so many have stepped up to the plate to let our wounded vets know we honor and respect the sacrifices they've made in service of this great nation.

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  2. Makes me long for the days when we had a president that the world respected and who did not pander to the Islamic world to our peril. Thank you, Donald.

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  3. Instead of patting each other on the spineless back, you may want to take a moment to understand that President Ronald Regan committed one of those blatant acts of political grandstanding too. Visit Firedoglake to see the picture. I guess that makes Obama and him the only ones with the stones to come witness the consequences of their decisions. The Bush father/son team surely didn't have the stones, don't have them now and never will have them.
    Get over it, guys. You lost the election and a guy with more class in his little toenail than your hero the Shrub would have in four of his bodies, is president. And, he's black, in case that means anything to you.

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  4. "Makes me long for the days when we had a president that the world respected and who did not pander to the Islamic world to our peril. Thank you, Donald."

    You people live in an alternate reality. If you think the world "respected" President Bush, regardless of all of the polls and anti-American sentiment during those years, then it is no wonder that only 19% of Americans identify themselves as part of your cult.

    Mike S

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  5. To the Leftists...drop dead.

    Obama screwed up BIG TIME.

    He got ONE family to allow him to act the arse.

    Grow up.

    Oh yeah, Reagan this, Bush that.

    Shut up.

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  6. Scarlet...Obama is NOT "black".

    He is GRAY. White and Black = Gray.

    Get over it. Obama is a waste of time.

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  7. GWBush could not stand to be in the same room with the dead. He had/has no honor. They did.

    and, Cassie.

    Are you implying GWBush did not see the troops because of a ban instituted by his father? If so, you must think the readers here are really stupid.

    and, I believe the only people who "respected" president deserter were those who thought they could get more money from him, and then, only for the time they "needed" the money.

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  8. I guess that makes Obama and him the only ones with the stones to come witness the consequences of their decisions. The Bush father/son team surely didn't have the stones, don't have them now and never will have them.

    Dumbest. Comment. Ever.

    It's a lot harder facing the families of the fallen (who are ALIVE and can talk back to you) than to stand on a tarmac and have your photo taken.

    But then you knew that, didn't you?

    Lame.

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  9. Are you implying GWBush did not see the troops because of a ban instituted by his father?

    This isn't rocket science.

    The point was that because there was a ban on press at Dover, then obviously there are no photos in the media.

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  10. People often criticize me for "dishonoring" the office of the president (the anarcho-socialist James Webb, for example), but I wrote a respectful post yesterday in response to President Obama's visit to Dover...

    Wow, so apparently I'm an anarcho-socialist now. I'll be honest Don, I can barely find enough hours in the day to be a godless nihilist but I'll do my best.

    And my criticism wasn't that you had written anything disrespectful about the office of the president but rather that you posted a drawing of someone literally pissing in the president's face.

    For that I said you lack class Don, after which one of your more grammatically challenged sycophants attempted what he apparently considered a clever rejoinder. But you never actually replied to my comment.

    Am I to assume that you don't consider this disrespectful to the office of the president of the United States? I'm sure your other readers are would be curious as to your opinion on this as well. Cheers.

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  11. I have had two reactions to this story, and my first was outrage. It was clearly a staged photo op, and I didn't even pay attention to the protocol or propriety of where the President was positioned when the caskets were brought off the plane. He should have been WITH THE FAMILY. My visceral reaction was, 'it is NOT about you.' It's the flight line at Dover AFB. The only way anyone gets a picture that perfectly is by being allowed to stand in the perfect spot.

    Now for the nitpicking. My first response was outrage for the photo opportunity, not for the attendance at the receiving of the remains at Dover AFB. No issue with the President being there; excellent that he was there to comfort the families. Diginity says you comfort the families and meet the remains, you do not have your photo taken. The context of the Reagan situation was that he was attending to the return of the remains of Americans killed in a terror attack; Obama is attending to the return of Americans killed in a war that has been raging for years. A subtle difference, but nevertheless.

    My second reaction--President Obama's Department of Defense cannot adequately set up and run a coordinated effort to combat IEDs. Some, but not all of the American war dead that arrived at Dover AFB were killed by IEDs. I think the practical must be remembered here--for years, these troops have fought and died with inadequate gear that a hidebound bureaucracy cannot procure properly for them. If President Obama wants to be the Commander in Chief, he needs to take responsibility for the fact that procurement is still broken, his Department of Defense is still a money-laundering operation that would make the mafia blush, and the buck stops with him.

    That's my assessment; feel free to rant and rave at me. I'm used to the haters. I have a good laugh at their expense every day.

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  12. JBW,

    Thank You. I cannot express the joy and out right humor your remarks gave me.

    Texas won and California lost.

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  13. Having grown up in Texas that makes me proud Dennis but I was actually speaking to Don, who has characteristically ignored anything that might make him uncomfortable or look stupid.

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  14. 'Scuse me, but I don't think you read the press accounts of this visit very carefully. Before paying his respects to the returning hero, the President met privately with a majority of the families waiting at Dover for the return of their loved ones. So much for the "Bush was brave enough to meet the families, Obama only wanted a photo op" canard. And by all means, check out the picture of Saint Ronald Reagan and wife Nancy visiting Dover Air Force Base with a full complement of press in tow after announcing that he was going to make the visit. How terribly foolish you appear when you engage in this kind of petty name calling.

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  15. Beej...one more Obamabot nincompoop.

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