When President Obama made an unthinking joke on Jay Leno, he has been hung up to dry ever since by the right, the left, and anyone connected to Special Olympics or work with the disabled (heaven knows if that word will be okay tomorrow as retarded is not anymore today).
If you have been avoiding the news recently, what Obama did was comment that his bowling made it seem like he was physically challenged. He didn't use those words, but what he said instead led to people, like Sarah Palin, jumping on the bandwagon to criticize his thoughtlessness.
Palin, who now has a child, who will be challenged, quickly grabbed the soapbox and her words were quoted everywhere. Her actions, where it comes to money to help those who are challenged, haven't matched her words. Even recently, she rejected some of the stimulus package that would have come to her state to help special education. Words vs. Actions.
Some tsk-tsked-- can you imagine the hullabaloo if Bush had said such a thing? Well there is one reason some (not many) might give Obama a pass on his careless comment (for which he quickly apologized). Actions. Obama, unlike Bush, has been supportive of paying for the actual programs that help families with handicapped (dare I say handicapped?) children-- probably not as today it is intellectually challenged or special needs children.
The reason retarded (which means delayed in case you didn't actually know) has become a bad word is because people have used it as an insult. Maybe if you add enough words to a description or title, you find the crude and rude won't bother to learn them and therefore the words are safe?
I don't remotely put down the power of words. I know that they can hurt or bring great joy. The wrong ones can do a lot of damage; but are they as important as the actions behind or alongside them?
In your life if someone says what a good friend they are to your face and then gossips about your private business behind your back, which words would have meant the most?
Ideally words should go with actions, but we all goof up sometimes. A president can least afford this to be the case. No wonder they get to a place where they don't do off the cuff venues, and where they instead watch every word they say and stick to planned speeches.
The criticism with Bush was that he lived in a bubble. His times into the public were carefully controlled events with his own party. Even a town hall event was filled with those who were followers. Obama is stepping out of the bubble or trying to do so and being criticized for not staying in it. You can't win, can you?
While we are distracted from the economic crisis, who benefits? Check out: Friedman in New York Times-- Are we home alone?
9 comments:
Sticks and stones can break your bones.....
Obama made an off remark, he apologised and in my mind that's the end of it.
When politicians go off script...they can get themselves in hot water, maybe that's why many presidents hide from the public.
We are a country of the free press and there is always somebody that's offended by something.
Words do hurt and it's good that we don't let comments slide! It's nice that we have become a more "sensitive nation" in that respect. It's yesterdays news though, we have bigger fish to fry, I think!
Actually I think Retarded is the correct word again. At least it was when my son was helping out with the special kids at his school. It seems that some things have come full circle. Maybe we are getting away from some of the political correctness and using descriptive words again.
Obama's gaffe is exactly why Presidents are not allowed to do live shows like Leno. And no you cannot win, when you are president. There will always be people that are upset.
We had similar thoughts when we wrote our post for today. I wrote about humor, and indirectly the words in jokes.
There is another old saying that applies to your post: "Actions speak louder than words." Sarah Palin is an idiot.
Interestingly, when researching for this, I had read an article that said retarded was not okay for the reasons I mentioned. Unfortunately, I didn't bookmark it here which is too bad as I have no idea where I read it.
Maybe it is like the N word, it is ok if they call themselves retarded but we cannot call them that.
I just heard the news that we can no longer call them "Toxic" assets that the new bank bailout plan is dealing with. Now they are Legacy assets. Orwellian nomenclature is alive and well.
And I thought the original bank bailout plan from October was supposed to deal with these toxic assets. Now we need a trillion more dollars to do it. Where did all that money go?
As far as presidents go, I am infinitely more interested in what they DO than what they SAY.
Who hasn't put their foot in their mouth and said something they lived to regret? (Sarah Palin does it with monotonous regularity.) Obama is human but I think he'll learn from this.
LMAO!!!!
You libbies are a joke...if Bush had said it, OH MY!!! The humanity!!!
And Darlene, Palin has more brains and honor in her pinky than Obamination has in his whole body.
If you think Palin had more honor than anybody out there, Suzie, you aren't paying attention to anything except right wing newspapers or blogs. If you think Bush could have been hit harder by this than Obama, you must get your news off talk radio and not even newspapers. Obama has been hit from all sides. The story is a week old and it's still going on. It suits Republican leadership just fine to keep people from paying attention to what they aren't doing.
Tell me how many right wingers hit on Bush when he made the disgusting joke about looking everywhere for WMDs? He tortured, he broke the rules of the civilized world including our own, done things that in other nations even presidents have been tried for, and yet he got total support from people like you, Suzie and you would do the same for Palin
I am proud to not be a Republican and one reason for that is hearing the way Obama was criticized by his own party for this joke. It means Democrats not only think but will not just accept whatever comes along from their leader. Bush had his loyal, brain-numbed supporting him no matter what he did. It made Bush a worse president and he's already near the bottom of any list. The right wing who followed along and supported him, who ignored any information that went against that, they have part of the responsibility for his low view in terms of presidential achievements.
Yes, Bush would have had more criticism if he had said Obama did but only from the left. The right would have just said oh my there he goes again and ignored it because it's what they did with everything he did. Break the Bill of Rights? hey it kept us safe. Torture someone? It wasn't me. Appear on an aircraft carrier saying Mission Accomplished by flying in on a jet when it was a few miles off the coast, isn't that cute! On and on it went from the right and would have been the same with Palin or will if she ever gets in.
What nailed Obama was the contradiction between what he said and did. And a lot of lefties are worried that we are starting in with another president who says one thing and does another. It's apparently what righties expect! If we, on the left, support him like you guys did Bush, we will as a country deserve what we get. I am still angry at those who never researched Palin, who knew nothing about her except she liked to shoot wolves from airplanes, kill a moose to have her photo, in full make-up, taken with the trophy.
What made Obama different from Bush is that his criticism has come from right and left. The right is going to find fault with anything he does, even when he succeeds because all they care about is the next election or their 'revolution'. Obama was criticized by the left because of the contradiction between what he did and what he said and that got him in the cross-hairs from both sides. This did not happen to Bush until the end of his term when they had turned to their new messiah-- Palin... and it was her, not McCain that most righties wanted.
Obama will learn to be careful about what he says on camera. The public can be brutal in their criticism. Funny thing is that we all commit faux pas yet we never get taken to task like a politician does. Does the word hypocrisy have a familiar ring. Watch out for the thought police !!
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