Why Did Obama Skip Arlington?

[Polk]

Dear black academics and historians:

Spend more time encouraging the vast vast majority of the black population on the importance of education, responsibility, accountability, a strong work ethic, speaking proper English, and a whole host of other problems of far more importance to them than this idiocy.

Well, there is a comment that speaks for itself (and I don't mean that in a good way).

 

[NYcarbineer]

Skip Arlington! If I ever got into broadcasting that would be my pseudonym.

 

[NYcarbineer]

You're mistaken if you think I pay attention to Glenn Beck. He's an infotainer, not a historian.

I prefer someone along the lines of Victor Davis Hanson.

Well that made me curious, so i wiki-ed, and, lucky for me, because I got a laugh out of it:

Hanson believes that the Iraq War is a good and worthwhile undertaking and that it has been, on the whole, a laudable success....

Hanson has anti-authoritarian and pro-Israel views on the Middle East. He believes that the occupation of Palestinian land by Israel is not responsible for any of the political turmoil in the Middle East.

Unsurprisingly you pass up the idiot Beck for the idiot Hanson.

 

[mudwhistle]

An interesting letter sent to Obama last year by a group of black academics and historians encourages him to not participate in the Memorial Day Ceremony at Arlington:

May 18, 2009

President Barack H. Obama
The White House
1600 Pennsylvania Avenue NW
Washington, DC 20500

Dear President Obama:

Since the administration of Woodrow Wilson, presidents have sent annually a wreath to the Arlington Confederate Monument. Prior to the administration of George H. W. Bush, this was done on or near the birthday of Jefferson Davis. Starting with George H.W. Bush, it has been done on Memorial Day.

We ask you to not send a wreath or some other commemorative token to the Arlington Confederate Monument during your administration or after.

There are several reasons as to why this monument, a product of the Nadir in American race relations, should not be honored, and we list and explain them in this letter.

The monument was intended to legitimize secession and the principles of the Confederacy and glorify the Confederacy. It isn’t just a remembrance of the dead. The speeches at its ground-breaking and dedication defended and held up as glorious the Confederacy and the ideas behind it and stated that the monument was to these ideals as well as the dead. It was also intended as a symbol of white nationalism, portrayed in opposition to the multiracial democracy of Reconstruction, and a celebration of the re-establishment of white supremacy in the former slave states by former Confederate soldiers. In its design it also tells wrong history, boasting fourteen shields with the coat of arms of fourteen states. Thus it claims that Missouri, Kentucky, and Maryland were part of the Confederacy. They weren’t. ....

Dear President Obama: Please Don't Honor the Arlington Confederate Monument


More on this at DailyKos:

Daily Kos: State of the Nation



The optics here are not good.

I don't kow why he didn't show up

I DO KNOW that if he had shown up the very same people who are bashing him for NOT showing up would have bashed him for SHOWING UP!

options:

1. he shows up

reaction by deranged cons: "how DARE he show up!" "who does he think he is!"

2. he doesn't show up

reaction by deranged cons: "how DARE he NOT show up! "who does he think he is!"

If he had showed his ass up there would have been other issues to bash him about...not this one.

He needs to show the fuck up....pay his respects.

But he didn't.

And not for the reasons you folks claimed.


He didn't show up because of bigotry.

 

[Samson]

I think Obama simply chose another venue to honor our soldiers, one closer to his home, and his heart.

Doesn't he know that his home is the White House?

 

[Ravi]

Actually, I was referring to the Co-signees of the letter in the OP: Quite a large % are from the Chicago Area, and all are socialists.

Not what you said...but, regardless. How is not honoring the Confederacy a bad thing? IMO, they were fucktards that wanted to keep slaves because they were too lame to figure out a way to make money otherwise.

I'm not saying anyone should "Honor the Confederacy."

However, in NOT visiting Arlington Cemetary on Memorial Day, Obama seems do have done just that!

The location was a famous Freedman Town for 30 years, and contains the graves of many black soldiers....I would only expect some white cracka president NOT to honor Arlington during Memorial Day!

I guess you didn't read the letter.

 

[mudwhistle]

Not what you said...but, regardless. How is not honoring the Confederacy a bad thing? IMO, they were fucktards that wanted to keep slaves because they were too lame to figure out a way to make money otherwise.

I'm not saying anyone should "Honor the Confederacy."

However, in NOT visiting Arlington Cemetary on Memorial Day, Obama seems do have done just that!

The location was a famous Freedman Town for 30 years, and contains the graves of many black soldiers....I would only expect some white cracka president NOT to honor Arlington during Memorial Day!

I guess you didn't read the letter.

The letter supposes something that is dead wrong.

The original intent of "Decoration Day" or now called Memorial Day was to heal the wounds caused by a rebellion by attempting to bring both sides of a Civil War together to honor their dead. History of Memorial Day — History.com Articles, Video, Pictures and Facts

The Black Historians who supported the writing of that letter are attempting to insert race into the occasion by claiming anytime you honor Confederate solders you're honoring what they stood for. Weren't they Americans? Instead of trying to bring us together these historians are attempting to drive us apart.....the same way that Segregationists attempted to drive us apart.

I see no difference between these historians then all of the crackers that tried to segregate us through the years.

I remembered the firestorms over forced busing in the 70s better known as "Desegregation". Blending of children in schools out of their district just so we would have diversity and equal education in schools. Now we have minorities trying to segregate us along racial lines. We've got the Whitey's memorial celebration in Arlington and then the closet Black celebration in Illinois with Obama.

 

[Samson]

The Black Historians who supported the writing of that letter are attempting to insert race into the occasion by claiming anytime you honor Confederate solders you're honoring what they stood for. Weren't they Americans? Instead of trying to bring us together these historians are attempting to drive us apart.....the same way that Segregationists attempted to drive us apart.

I see no difference between these historians then all of the crackers that tried to segregate us through the years.

I remembered the firestorms over forced busing in the 70s better known as "Desegregation". Blending of children in schools out of their district just so we would have diversity and equal education in schools. Now we have minorities trying to segregate us along racial lines. We've got the Whitey's memorial celebration in Arlington and then the closet Black celebration in Illinois with Obama.

Excellent Post.

Ayers and the other co-signees have found a tempest in a tea-pot, and Obama is happy to kiss their asses.

However, I'm not surprised: This is the same president that has apologised for the US's "Superpower" global role, and claimed that capitalism has unfairly created wealthy people.

 

[boedicca]

The Black Historians who supported the writing of that letter are attempting to insert race into the occasion by claiming anytime you honor Confederate solders you're honoring what they stood for. Weren't they Americans? Instead of trying to bring us together these historians are attempting to drive us apart.....the same way that Segregationists attempted to drive us apart.

I see no difference between these historians then all of the crackers that tried to segregate us through the years.

I remembered the firestorms over forced busing in the 70s better known as "Desegregation". Blending of children in schools out of their district just so we would have diversity and equal education in schools. Now we have minorities trying to segregate us along racial lines. We've got the Whitey's memorial celebration in Arlington and then the closet Black celebration in Illinois with Obama.

Excellent Post.

Ayers and the other co-signees have found a tempest in a tea-pot, and Obama is happy to kiss their asses.

However, I'm not surprised: This is the same president that has apologised for the US's "Superpower" global role, and claimed that capitalism has unfairly created wealthy people.

Bingo.

It's not good for the country for Obama to jump when Bill Ayers speaks.

 

[Ravi]

He didn't.

The depth of your dishonesty is astounding.

 

[boedicca]

The shallowness of your intellect, however, is completely typical.

 

[bodecea]

I think that Obama not going to Arlington should be a KEYSTONE in the RNC's election campaign ads this Fall. Really. A KEYSTONE.

 

[boedicca]

No, it's minor compared to the truly horrific ObamaCare, Stimulus Package, Massive Debt, unwillingness to enforce existing immigration laws, and the incompetent response to the BP oil spill.

I'm sure he will add more incompetency to the pile before November.

 

[Samson]

I think that Obama not going to Arlington should be a KEYSTONE in the RNC's election campaign ads this Fall. Really. A KEYSTONE.

Why?

Does the Obama 2012 re-Election Campaign begin this fall?

heh.

yeah: Probably wise to begin earlier the better defending, denying, and spinning the multiple faux pas.

I honestly was hoping for Obama to somehow be competent: Sadly it appears he's in well over his head.

 

[Patriot214]

The President of the United States failing to appear at arlington to pay tribute to fallen soldiers on Memorial Day is unacceptable.