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Posted on 09/15/2008 2:00:31 AM PDT by markomalley
It is difficult to screw up an appearance at Ground Zero on September 11th. You have to be either completely oblivious or completely indifferent. It is a signal feat of idiocy.
And yet Barack Obama accomplished it.
John McCain and Obama visited Ground Zero together. Obama and McCain entered the site. But while McCain took the time to shake hands with uniformed firefighters and a construction worker with an American flag helmet, Obama ignored them and stood around.
But he wasn’t done yet. Both McCain and Obama brought roses to place on the makeshift 9/11 memorial. Obama casually tossed his rose on the memorial, looking somewhat like Don Barzini tossing a rose on Don Corleone’s grave near the end of Godfather I. McCain and his wife, by contrast, approached the memorial gingerly, then placed the roses with care on the memorial. In case you were wondering, Michelle Obama was back in Chicago tending to the children – she somehow has time to accompany Barack to the DNC, but not to Ground Zero on September 11th.
Small gestures matter in large campaigns. That’s why Obama reversed himself on wearing an American flag pin. That’s why John McCain takes care with how he hugs Sarah Palin. In a campaign, everything is analyzed, re-analyzed, and over-analyzed.
And that’s why Obama’s flower-tossing exhibition matters. It demonstrates a lack of concentration, a lack of respect. Most of all, it displays no reverence. Perhaps Obama feels reverence. But his behavior at Ground Zero didn’t show that. Instead, it showed a man so concerned with himself that he wasn’t willing to take the time to shake hands with the “little people” or bend down to lay a rose on a monument.
That self-concern is at the center of Obama’s polling free fall. He has ranged far afield, away from policy and toward personal combat. He has done that because he cannot stand being personally affronted.
Sarah Palin attacked Obama’s community organizing. Obama responded by sending out his minions to talk about how Jesus was a community organizer and Pontius Pilate a governor. Meanwhile, he blundered into the “lipstick on a pig” controversy.
Obama attacked McCain on education. McCain responded with an ad accusing Obama of supporting comprehensive sex education for kindergarteners in Illinois. Obama came back with an ad talking about how McCain is old and doesn’t use e-mail.
The common thread is this: when attacked substantively, Obama counters personally. He gets angry, and he gets mean. He has read his own press clippings, and he believes them. He is The One. No one is allowed to attack him.
There are only two problems with such hubris. One is that Americans don’t like it. Arrogance bugs us. Ask John Edwards and Hillary Clinton.
The other problem is that when you believe yourself to be a messianic figure, you have to live up to that image – and you are bound to fail. Presidential politics is a game of attacks and counter-attacks, feints and bluffs, insults and retorts. It cannot be won up in the clouds – it has to be won in the mud. Even if your image demands that you remain the clouds, you will be brought down into the mud.
And so we see the new Barack Obama. The new Obama is no longer the “united we stand,” rhetoric-blowing giant. He is now the street-smart Chicago politician willing to unsheathe the knife on occasion. Only he’s not that street-smart, and it shows. Obama vowed to bring a gun to a knife-fight. Americans are beginning to realize that Obama’s gun is filled with water.
Obama’s behavior at the 9/11 memorial, then, represented two impulses. First, there was the anger of walking down to the memorial with the man who was sinking his highfalutin’ aspiration’. Second, there was the inability to bend down, even for a memorial.
And that betrays a disturbing lack of self-knowledge and self-restraint.
Seats still available!
The wackiest, ACORN'iest comedy act in all 57 states!
[rimshot]
[special thanks to Rush Limbaugh for the pic]
I saw the video of this. Not only did the McCains bend down and reverently place their roses on the memorial, but afterwards, as they were going through the line shaking hands, two of the policemen (firemen? I’m not quite sure) in their dress uniforms at separate times each took a pin off his uniform and carefully pinned it to McCain’s lapel and Mrs. McCain’s collar. No one did this for Obambi.
I saw Obama THROW his rose on the memorial while John McCain bent over with reverence and placed his rose with the others. For anybody who has “eyes to see” this one is a no brainer.
where’s the video?
We’re all getting to know BO, and the realization many of us have is that he’s a real a**h**e. I was stunned when I heard him say “Wah Silly” and do not believe for a moment that it was but one more gaffe. No, he was out to belittle Sarah Palin’s hometown and everyone in it. Ditto with the “Moose Hunter....that’s cool, that’s cool, blah blah blah.”
This guy is incredibly immature and you can bet america’s enemies have sized him up and are salivating at the thought that he might be elected.
I found it while browsing a PUMA site, and can't recall which one. It's on youtube, if that helps, but can't give you any more specifics than that. Sorry. Wait: I think C-SPAN was broadcasting the ceremonies, and they may have it, too.
I have to agree with the Freepers who have pointed out that his behavior was quite possibly a reaction to something that happened just moments prior to the "flower chucking" incident:
There was a long line of officers greating McCain, his wife and then the solitary Obama. As McCain went down the line, he was warmly greated, shook hands and then at one point, two officers took off their commemorative pins and placed one on McCain's Jacket and another on his wife's. They were accepted graciously. As Obama passed down the line by himself, no one offered him a pin.
So then McCain, his arms and body torn and devastated by injuries gained in service to his nation, gently bent down to lower the flower to it's resting place. Obama, in a hissy-fit over the obvious snub, gave a "whatever!" toss of the flower to wherever the heck it was supposed to go. What was Obama thinking? Who knows...he was probably thinking "I bet McCain can't even email..."
“I’ve been to all...I think....57 states. Still two to go!”
The more I see of this kind of tone-deaf faux pas committed by Obama, the more convinced I am that he’s a figurehead put forward and propped up by entities who stand to gain by his winning this election. Any politician who has had to win elections the old fashioned way knows how to behave in every kind of public situation. But Obama has never had to really to work to win an election. He’s had the Chicago machine behind him every time. All he’s ever had to do was show up and mouth the words in the teleprompter. I’d just like to know who’s pulling the strings of this puppet.
I just saw the video - which could have been a compilation - but it showed the flower ceremony first, and then the four of them (Bloomberg was there, too) moving through what was like a reception line. And, yes, while they were going through the line, they didn’t have any flowers, so I think the flowers happened first.
I want to shout "Open your eyes!" to all the people with their Obama buttons on the morning train (I live in Boston, work in Cambridge).
I feel like Kevin McCarthy at the end of Invasion of the Body Snatchers.
Of course Barrack wouldn’t act like a normal American. He’s one of the “Elite”, not a common man.
Obama looks so uncomfortable. He seems to want to shout out "I am so BORED! Why don't you morons just bow down to me, and let me out of this stupid place, there's no chilled white wine or anything here!"
After reviewing the video from MSNBC I won’t revise my comment, but add to it.
While Barrack did shake hands with people, he appeared agitated that he ended up behind McCain - and had to wait for him as he slowly moved down the line. He’d didn’t look happy playing 2nd fiddle.
‘We’re the ones we’ve been waiting for” “When I’m elected the waters will recede (or some such crap like that”)....good freaking grief.
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