Mr. Obama let’s get this straight . . . a president of the United States, even a faux one like you should NOT be disparaging or singling out any group of people because they disagree with you.
This country was built on dissent. It is our right and obligation as citizens of this Republic to voice our dissent and displeasure when the Government oversteps. Instead of denigrating the tea party tax protesters who demonstrated all over the country, the proper response was to celebrate this dissent!
This was childish and as reported in Hu Po :
The shot across the bow at the Tea Party demonstrators follows prior administration efforts to paint those protests as decidedly non-reality (italics mine) based affairs.
Apparently, Obama’s tripling the size of this country’s national debt is something we are to overlook. To which I want to yell, “Are you @#$%in crazy?”
[youtube]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NPPygBDM5do&eurl=http%3A%2F%2Fthinkprogress.org%2F2009%2F04%2F29%2Fobama-tea-baggers-games%2F&feature=player_embedded[/youtube]
In an occurrence that has become more and more common, Youtube removed this video. So here are the words Obama spoke:
“When you see, you know, those of you that are watching certain news channels on which I’m not very popular, and you see folks waving tea bags around, let me just remind them that I am happy to have a serious conversation about how we are going to cut our health care costs down over the long term, how we are going to stabilize Social Security,” he said. “[Sen.] Claire [McCaskill] (who aided the Truth Squads during the primaries) and I are working diligently to basically do a thorough audit of federal spending,” Obama told the crowd, at one point mimicking the waving of a tea bag with his left hand.
“But let’s not play games and pretend that the reason is because of the Recovery Act, because that is just a fraction of the overall problem that we’ve got. We are going to have to tighten our belts but we are going to have to do it intelligently. And we got to make sure that the people helped are working American families and we are not suddenly saying that the way to do this is to eliminate programs that help ordinary people and give more tax cuts to the wealthy. We tried that formula for eight years and it did not work. And I don’t intend to go back to it.”
Childish behavior of this sort is not new for Obama. Anyone remember him flipping Hillary the bird during the campaign? The MSM forgave this transgression of bad behavior, as well. Hillary may have made a few mistakes in the campaign, but I never remember her once being rude or crude!
[youtube]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UoOFp-RDpvM&eurl=http%3A%2F%2Fwww.hillarynme.com%2Fwp-admin%2Fpost.php%3Faction%3Dedit%26post%3D3098%26message%3D7&feature=player_embedded[/youtube]
Might I suggest that the savvy, adult way to have handled this was to say to group that you and your teleprompter were talking to was this.
“Everyone in this country cannot agree with me or my team all the time. That is unrealistic and dangerous in a country that applauds free speech and dissent. So, to the thousands that protested, I recognize your concerns. I want you to know that this administration will try to do better job addressing these concerns as we work together to continue buiding this country’s greatness.”
Anyone holding their breathe?
