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Obama, the Coffee Salute, and the Dementia on the Right
The Daily Beast ^ | September 25, 2014 | Sally Kohn

Posted on 09/28/2014 4:45:20 PM PDT by 2ndDivisionVet

Should he have switched hands? Dropped the cup? Not drank the coffee? Declared war on coffee growers? Any way, the right woulda whacked him.

Since his inauguration, Republicans have criticized President Obama for everything. For launching military strikes. For not launching military strikes. For taking vacations. For being too uptight. For fist-bumping. For being too detached. You name it. Progressives and those who simply like fair-minded political debate have alleged that the actual facts of President Obama’s actions are irrelevant, that Republicans who were determined to oppose everything the president did from Day One would criticize his every move no matter what.

To illustrate this, let’s look at two recent examples of Republican outrage and how, if the facts were entirely different, Republicans would nonetheless be outraged. It’s like a “Choose Your Own Adventure” tale, except the outcome is always the same—Republicans portraying President Obama as singularly awful in every way.

Story Number One: The Coffee Cup Salute

This week, President Obama disembarked from Air Force One while holding his jacket in his left hand and a coffee cup in his right. He saluted the Marines standing guard on the tarmac with his right hand—the hand with the coffee cup in it. The right wing exploded with outrage.

What could the President have done differently? Here are three other scenarios—and how the right wing would have reacted… with outrage.

Variation A: The Coffee Cup Handoff

Rather than salute with the coffee cup in his hand, President Obama hands the cup to an aide standing on the steps behind him. Right-wingers tweet: “Obama treats his staff like servants. Natch, for a dictator.”

Variation B: He Switches Hands

It is damn hard to transfer a coffee cup from one hand into an encumbered other hand all while walking down the stairs. So the president spills the coffee. The headline on conservative web sites? “Obama: Can’t handle a cup of coffee or the world’s challenges.”

Variation C: He Forgoes the Damn Coffee

The story gets out that Obama skipped his usual afternoon dose of caffeine heading toward the U.N. meeting. Later, the decaffeinated president yawns. The picture makes the front page of the New York Post, Breitbart, and so on. BAM BORED BY WAR, goes the Post headline. “I think you’re boring too,” Michelle Malkin tweets.

Story Number Two: The White House Intruder

A man managed to climb over the White House fence and bolt for the front door, just barely entering the building at which point he was tackled by the Secret Service. Conservatives have attacked the lax security under Obama, even straining to tie the threat to ISIS. And, as Gov. Mike Huckabee wrote, “Maybe now Obama’s White House staff will understand how our Southern border states feel.” Now of course this was an unfortunate incident, and security protocols need to be reviewed. But no matter what there’s a way to make it Obama’s fault…

Variation A: Secret Service Tackles the Intruder

The White House intruder is Latino. So say the Secret Service nabs him on the lawn, in plain sight of tourists with cameras. Conservatives subsequently post the pictures online with captions like, “Obama doesn’t mind Hispanics invading the United States border, as long as you don’t invade his house.” “The only Latino fence-jumper Obama’s arrested in six years.”

Variation B: Secret Service Shoots the Intruder

Fox News produces tear-jerker interviews with young trespasser’s family. Right-wing columnists call for Eric Holder to launch a full-scale federal investigation on racial profiling at the White House. If he doesn’t then he’s a hypocrite because, you know, Ferguson.

Conservatives are so determined to bash Obama that they will go through whatever contortions of fact or logic are necessary to attack the president no matter what. See also Republicans criticizing Obama for not doing something to get Bowe Berghdahl released before he did do something, and then they criticized him for that. Or criticizing Obama for not enforcing our broken immigration laws until he does so by deporting more immigrants than any previous president, and conservatives then charge that the numbers are fake.

The examples are almost as boundless as Republicans’ desperation to repeatedly point fingers at the president to distract from the fact that Republicans have no solutions for the actual issues facing the American people.

We get it. You hate the guy. So America gives you a salute. But not the kind done with four fingers.

The authoress


TOPICS: Government; Military/Veterans; Politics
KEYWORDS: dailybeast; marines; military; newsweak; obama; obamafail; photoops; usmc
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To: Celtic Conservative

She used a mix-master on her hair.


41 posted on 09/28/2014 5:54:54 PM PDT by Old Grumpy
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To: 2ndDivisionVet

She just doesn’t get it.

President Sad Sack.

“The way you salute says a lot about you as a soldier. A proud, smart salute shows pride in yourself and your unit and that you are confident in your abilities as a soldier. A sloppy salute might mean that you’re ashamed of your unit, lack confidence, or at the very least, that you haven’t learned how to salute correctly.”

http://www.armystudyguide.com/content/Prep_For_Basic_Training/Prep_for_basic_customs_and_courtesies/the-hand-salute.shtml.


42 posted on 09/28/2014 5:55:19 PM PDT by Lonesome in Massachussets (This is known as "bad luck". - Robert A. Heinlein)
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To: 2ndDivisionVet
Since his inauguration, Republicans have criticized President Obama for everything.

Unlike Bush who the media and the left treated with the utmost respect

Right here at the first sentence I realized this was just another defense of the incompetent affirmative action joke we have in the White Hut and I quit reading.

43 posted on 09/28/2014 5:56:18 PM PDT by YankeeReb
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To: 2ndDivisionVet
We get it. You hate the guy. So America gives you a salute. But not the kind done with four fingers. - Sally Kohn

"There's Something About Sally"

I think when she was performing her Daily Obama Worship service (aka Das ObamaSplootGeschlurping), she caught a little in her coiffure...

That's so cute...

44 posted on 09/28/2014 5:57:08 PM PDT by kiryandil (making the jests that some FReepers aren't allowed to...)
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To: SkyDancer
Mother Gaia is even mad that he uses the hates Styrofoam. The left better watch out. Their goddess will get mad at them for defending Obozo.
45 posted on 09/28/2014 5:57:49 PM PDT by FreeAtlanta (Liberty or Big Government - you can't have both.)
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To: naturalman1975
Surely President Obama should have anticipated he was going to be saluted in this situation.

...and could not be bothered to make the minimal effort to appear to even care.

46 posted on 09/28/2014 5:57:50 PM PDT by Lonesome in Massachussets (This is known as "bad luck". - Robert A. Heinlein)
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To: Lonesome in Massachussets; naturalman1975

I doubt he has the ability to think that far ahead. It would be great to play him in chess... checkers... or tick-tack-toe.


47 posted on 09/28/2014 6:00:05 PM PDT by FreeAtlanta (Liberty or Big Government - you can't have both.)
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To: RetiredTexasVet

“Lady looks like one of Debbie Wasserman-Schultz’s infamouse “jew bags”.”

That’s Rachel Madcow’s husband.


48 posted on 09/28/2014 6:00:10 PM PDT by EQAndyBuzz (Manchuria Called. They want their Candidate Back!)
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To: 2ndDivisionVet
Should he have switched hands? Dropped the cup? Not drank the coffee? 

How about just leave it behind and get another one when he gets inside?

-PJ

49 posted on 09/28/2014 6:01:16 PM PDT by Political Junkie Too (If you are the Posterity of We the People, then you are a Natural Born Citizen.)
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To: 2ndDivisionVet
Hey Sally, why didn't Bammy just do what he did last time and hand his coffee cup to his Marine servant before saluting? Problem solved!!


50 posted on 09/28/2014 6:04:43 PM PDT by VeniVidiVici
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To: Calvin Locke
I'd like to meet some of these alleged Pubbies.

Save for the initial opposition to Obamacare, they've been working with him, and shirking their Constitutional duties.

Yup, like most smarter-than-everyone-else-in-the-room progressives, she confuses Republicans with conservatives. We may vote (R) because the alternative is too horrible to imagine, but we don't march in lockstep with the pubs. We will bash a Repub, when it's warranted, but you'll NEVER hear a leftist like Sally bash the Big 0

51 posted on 09/28/2014 6:07:08 PM PDT by YankeeReb
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To: Vermont Lt

he knew exactly what he was doing-and so does she.


52 posted on 09/28/2014 6:33:28 PM PDT by RedwM
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To: 2ndDivisionVet

Definitely a bull dyke.


53 posted on 09/28/2014 6:35:35 PM PDT by FlingWingFlyer (Stop flooding our schools with unaccompanied illegal aliens. Do it for the children!)
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To: All

service members and their families are props to these people, just like they were to the Clintons.


54 posted on 09/28/2014 6:36:38 PM PDT by newnhdad (Our new motto: USA, it was fun while it lasted.)
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To: SkyDancer
zactly ! The real issue is the hypocrite uses Styrofoam.
55 posted on 09/28/2014 6:40:26 PM PDT by stylin19a (Obama ----> Fredo smart)
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To: FreeAtlanta
I doubt he has the ability to think that far ahead. It would be great to play him in chess... checkers... or tick-tack-toe.

Yeah, challenging the Sunni-In-Chief to a game of hopscotch would probably get you an interview with a pair of SS agents, for posing a danger to the physically & mentally "challenged" Clownsident...

56 posted on 09/28/2014 6:48:01 PM PDT by kiryandil (making the jests that some FReepers aren't allowed to...)
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To: 2ndDivisionVet

“Progressives and those who simply like fair-minded political debate”

Stopped reading.


57 posted on 09/28/2014 6:57:15 PM PDT by demshateGod (The fool hath said in his heart, There is no God.)
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To: Politicalkiddo
If he had bothered to switch hands, there would be no problem.

Is the dork coordinated enough to drape a jacket over his left arm while holding a cup in his left hand at the same time?

58 posted on 09/28/2014 7:01:19 PM PDT by Go Gordon (Barack McGreevey Obama)
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To: Go Gordon

the woman is a dumb see you en tee


59 posted on 09/28/2014 7:31:03 PM PDT by albertabound
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To: 2ndDivisionVet

Shut the hell up Sally..like your side didn’t attack President Bush 24/7 for his entire 2 terms..just shut up.


60 posted on 09/28/2014 8:52:46 PM PDT by tina07 (In loving memory of my father,WWII Vet. CBI 10/16/42-12/17/45, d. 11/1/85)
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