Someone made the point earlier...Twitter, Facebook are part of our lives a guest could have tweeted how cool it was to see MAO. The risk is simply with being the daughter of the POTUS.
I am a father and there is NO FN WAY I would have sent my 13 yr old kid to Mexico during a period of time when the State Dept was warning against traveling there. Bad parenting. Bad decisions. Bad POTUS.
That being said - It is still a violation of the first amendment for this administration to abuse its power to ask politely or forcefully for many news organizations to pull a story that he found objectionable.
We are dealing with a dictator, it’s time people recognized that.
BTW - There were plenty of stories about the Bush twins about where they partied and drank....none of them were as flattering as this story about MAO.
I’d have a fit if my 30 year old went to Mexico! Been to Mexico many times way in the past, wouldn’t even consider it today. Lots of places I wouldn’t consider today.
At this point I am more concerned with Obama’s HHS mandating that college girls’ voluntary sterilizations be covered by insurers than his putting the arm on his ever-compliant friends in the press about when/where his daughter is.
I’m not too sure, tho, this is a technical violation of the 1st Amendment. He doesn’t have to ORDER the press what to say or not to say, he just says what he wants and it’s done. The ‘free press’ has, over and over again, violate its responsibility as a free press. It has been utterly corrupted. And I fully realize he is a dictator.
Free Republic's admin moderator, to his credit, gave a reason: “Leave the kids alone.”
Let's change the situation a little. About a half-decade ago, I wrote an article that neither I nor my Army Public Affairs media escorts realized while I was doing the interview could have compromised the safety of the troops. The article was printed and then posted online. Shortly afterward I received a call from PAO requesting that some key parts of the article be removed from the internet as a security risk.
I had no problem with that request and quickly did what I was asked to do. Requests are requests. As long as I don't have to comply, that's fine — and the fact is that PAO was fully aware I would never knowingly have written something to put troops at risk, and their own people standing next to me didn't realize the problem themselves.
Government steps over the line when requests become something other than requests, or if the request is made merely to avoid making a public official or public figure look bad.
I think Vice President Joe Biden or President George Bush (both Bush I and Bush II) can advise President Obama on what happens when kids are no longer kids, and when college-age or adult sons and daughters of presidents do things they shouldn't be doing.
102 posted on Monday, March 19, 2012 10:34:39 PM by lward99: “That being said - It is still a violation of the first amendment for this administration to abuse its power to ask politely or forcefully for many news organizations to pull a story that he found objectionable. We are dealing with a dictator, it’s time people recognized that. BTW - There were plenty of stories about the Bush twins about where they partied and drank....none of them were as flattering as this story about MAO.”