After being the GOP’s latest (and for him, best-timed) flavor of the month, Iowa Caucus co-winner Rick Santorum told a group of New Hampshire voters that it’s “snobbery” for President Obama to think he knows “how to run our lives” and say that everyone should go to college. Speaking at St. Anselm College (the irony!), Santorum said he was “outraged” at “the hubris of this president to think that he knows what’s best for you.”
I agree with Santorum that college isn’t for everyone and someone certainly doesn’t need to finish college to be personally successful or influential in high-tech fields. Bill Gates and Mark Zuckerberg are the best examples of that. Not everyone is going to be a Zuckerberg or a Gates, though.
I’m going to go out on a limb and guess Obama wasn’t suggesting a federal mandate stating every person is required to go to college. I’m sure he meant that everyone should have the opportunity - the freedom! – to go college, if they choose.
So, while college isn’t for everyone, Obama is correct in suggesting that it’s a good thing and makes life better. Here are three reasons why:
On MSNBC’s “Morning Joe” yesterday, Time magazine’s senior political analyst and editor-at-large Mark Halperin said President Obama was “kind of a dick” in how he “behaved” at his press conference on Wednesday.
Here’s the clip:
A few minutes later, he made an on-air apology. “Joking aside, this not a pro forma apology, it’s an absolute apology – heartfelt to the president and to the viewers. I became part of the joke, but that’s no excuse. I made a mistake and I’m sorry and I shouldn’t have said it. And as I said, I apologize to the president and the viewers who heard me say that.”
Here’s what’s wrong with Halperin’s “dick” remark:
1. Regardless of who’s being talked about, cable or network morning television isn’t the place to call someone a dick. A nighttime show? Maybe, but even then, not the president (which I’ll get to in a moment).
2. Halperin knew he shouldn’t have said it on television because he asked about the seven-second delay. The “joke” wasn’t spontaneous or something said in the heat of an argument. It appears the remark was planned. Between thinking about saying “kind of a dick” and the banter that ensued when they discussed the delay, Halperin had plenty of time to consider the remark and decide not to say it. He decided wrong.
3. An editor-at-large and senior political analyst of the country’s largest news magazine shouldn’t call anyone – the president or an average Joe – a dick. It’s unprofessional for any journalist to do that on-air. Which brings me to…
5. Finally, the most obvious: Should anyone call the president a dick on TV? Of course not! It’s the President of the United States! It’s our highest and most esteemed elected office. Obama and other presidents have been called worse in homes, offices, the Internet and other places where people talk about politics. But we look to journalists and others who lead political discussions to maintain a certain level of respect for the political process and the people involved in it.
MSNBC was right to indefinitely suspend Halperin. Not only was he disrespectful, he was a bad guest who showed bad judgment.
UPDATE: As with any big breaking news story, initial stories turn out to be false as details emerge. The death of Osama bin Laden is no different. It’s now being reported that Bin Laden wasn’t armed when he was killed and he didn’t use his wife as a human shield. This is the “new narrative” put out by the White House.
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At this point, you probably know some of the facts about the raid that killed al-Qaeda leader Osama bin Laden. You probably know a U.S. Navy SEAL team conducted the operation at bin Laden’s compound near Pakistan’s military academy.
Because there’s a lot of information out there, here are some videos, news bites, and opinion pieces about bin Laden’s death that you may have missed.
First, President Obama’s speech on Sunday night announcing bin Laden had been killed:
ABC News was able to go inside the compound where bin Laden and three others were killed, including one of his wives who was used as a human shield by the al-Qaeda leader during the firefight.
The National Journal goes inside the Navy SEALs to see how it worked with intelligence and other military agencies to succeed in the operation.
How was bin Laden positively identified? According to the Daily Telegraph, with the help of DNA from his dead sister’s brain.
BBC News has reaction from more than world 30 leaders.
How did you learn about bin Laden’s death? I was without a TV, but I had Twitter. “[It] was faster, more accurate, and more entertaining than any other news source out there,” wrote Matt Rosoff in Business Insider. I second that!
In what could be called a the biggest head-fake in history, (wait, it already was on Twitter), 24 hours before Obama’s announcement, “Saturday Night Live’s” Seth Meyers joked about bin Laden’s whereabouts at the White House Correspondents’ Dinner. Obama and Defense Secretary Robert Gates (who you can see in the audience) kept cool and revealed nothing. They laughed and they laughed…
Hat tip to mediabistro’s Newsfeed and The Daily Beast’s Cheat Sheet for pointing me in the right direction of some of these links.
If you don’t know who Herman Cain is, the former head of Godfather’s Pizza who became a GOP hero after embarrassing then-president Clinton in a debate on healthcare, ran for U.S. Senator in Georgia in 2004, and is currently formerly a radio talk show host, might run for Republican presidential nomination.
And compared to Barack Obama, Cain thinks he is a “real black man.”
That’s what Cain said on Wednesday at a Tea Party function in Florida. The mainstream media is scared, according to Cain, that Sarah Palin or Minnesota Congresswoman Michele Bachmann would get the Republican nomination for president. Then he said, “[The mainstream media is] doubly scared that a real black man might run against Barack Obama.”
The passage begins about 2:37 in:
This takes Man Up to a different and interesting level. During the 2010 election, Man Up and its variations were used to demean candidates who were accused by their opponents as not having the “cajones” or “man-pants” to be strong and decisive leaders.
Politico reported that, according to Cain’s spokeswoman Ellen Carmichael, he wasn’t “challenging Obama’s racial origin.” She said, ”He was referring to himself in the first person…He was saying that there could be a general election with two black men.” Then why the emphasis on the word “real?” And why bring up race at all? In that one remark, Cain asserted his own black masculinity, while questioning Obama’s.
So, it begs the question: Is Cain a “real black man?” I don’t know, nor would I list qualities for one of any race. But a real man – and by that I mean a mature adult male – wouldn’t brag about how much of a “real man” he is.
President Barack Obama’s speech at the memorial service for the victims of Saturday’s shooting was brilliant and powerful. He consoled and comforted the citizens of Tucson and the nation, while eulogizing those who were killed and praising the first responders and doctors who are still working to heal those who survived.
He also talked about the level of vitriol in political debate. He said a lack of civility in politics didn’t motivate the alleged shooter, Jared Loughner. In fact, he departed from the prepared text and firmly said, “It did not.” Obama used the opportunity, though, to appeal for unity among Americans and inspire hope about our political system. He asked all of us to live up to the expectations of our children and make our country as good as Christina Green – the youngest victim in Saturday’s shooting – imagined it.
They believed and I believe we can be better. Those who died here, those who saved lives here – they help me believe. We may not be able to stop all evil in the world, but I know that how we treat one another, that’s entirely up to us. And I believe that for all our imperfections, we are full of decency and goodness, and that the forces that divide us are not as strong as those that unite us.
That’s what I believe, in part because that’s what a child like Christina Taylor Green believed. Imagine for a moment: here was a young girl who was just becoming aware of our democracy; just beginning to understand the obligations of citizenship; just starting to glimpse the fact that someday she too might play a part in shaping her nation’s future. She had been elected to her student council; she saw public service as something exciting and hopeful. She was off to meet her congresswoman, someone she was sure was good and important and might be a role model. She saw all this through the eyes of a child, undimmed by the cynicism or vitriol that we adults all too often just take for granted.
I want to live up to her expectations. I want our democracy to be as good as Christina imagined it. I want America to be as good as she imagined it. All of us – we should do everything we can do to make sure this country lives up to our children’s expectations.
For anyone interested in racial and ethnic harmony, it’s been a crappy summer.
A quick recap: Arizona’s immigration law passed; the NAACP took on Tea Party racism, and the Tea Party came back in a bad way; Andrew Breitbart took on the NAACP and Shirley Sherrod making all parties involved look bad, including Barack Obama; 1/5 of Americans think Obama is a Muslim in spite of factual evidence to the contrary and none to support it; there’s the controversy over the so-called “Ground Zero Mosque” that isn’t located in Ground Zero and is more of a community center than a mosque; and Dr. Laura used the word “nigger” 11 times to a black caller.
These moments and the lack of any progress on race show the country isn’t ready to engage and have an honest conversation about how race and ethnicity affect Americans. What’s worse is President Obama doesn’t appear ready to lead the country in this matter. This is a shame because he is the perfect person to do it.
I chose to run for the presidency at this moment in history because I believe deeply that we cannot solve the challenges of our time unless we solve them together – unless we perfect our union by understanding that we may have different stories, but we hold common hopes; that we may not look the same and we may not have come from the same place, but we all want to move in the same direction – towards a better future for our children and our grandchildren.
It requires all Americans to realize that your dreams do not have to come at the expense of my dreams.
That’s what a lot of the racial and ethnic stories that captured our attention this summer are about (except, perhaps, the Dr. Laura rant): Someone different from me is getting something I’m not. These issues aren’t just about race. They’re about class, immigration and jobs, too. They’re about race and money.
Obama is the embodiment of an American who can and has crossed multiple racial and economic groups and this is the second reason he should be talking more about these problems. He is the son of a white American and black Kenyan. He grew up in a working-class family in Hawaii as well as some time in Indonesia. He attended two elite Ivy League schools in the East, and he was a community organizer in Chicago. His life is a range of race and class in America. It’s multi-racial, multi-ethnic, and spans different geographic regions and economic classes. Continue reading 'Race, Class and Obama'»
On my old blog, I compiled links to interesting news and opinion pieces from around the Internet. I’ll start doing the same here about sex, race and American culture. As always, feel free to leave your comments below.
-One year ago today, Michael Jackson died at the age of 50. According to this estimate, the King of Pop’s estate made $1 billion (yes, with a “b”) in revenue since his death. [Billboard]
-Joran van der Sloot claims he’s getting mail from women who want to marry him and have his baby. Why do some women like very bad boys? [The Daily Beast]
-If there were groups of heavily armed black men who wanted to “take back” their country during the Bush/Cheney years, would they be viewed the same as the militia groups that have grown in number since Obama’s inauguration? [Washington Post]
-The leak and environmental disaster in the Gulf of Mexico is the “missing white woman” of oil spills. [The Root]
Sarah Palin’s and Barack Obama’s very different styles and appeal illustrate the contradiction Americans have about our leaders. Some people like Joe the Plumbers. Others like elites. Others like the two wrapped up into one.
Palin, who has said she’s thinking about running for president in 2012, blew away the Tea Party Convention crowd in Nashville for a price of $100,000. What unique brand of folksy does the Tea Party get for 100-grand? She delivers lines like, “How’s that hope-y, change-y stuff working out for ya?” and writes on her hand. (You’d think with all that money, she could just remember the four concepts she scribbled on her palm.)
On the other hand (pun intended), Obama’s State of the Union speech last month was just the opposite of Palin’s folksy speech. There were the customary two introductions of the president and 91 ovations, including 58 that brought Congress – at least some of them – to their feet. Kings, queens and dictators get that type of adulation.
Harry Reid’s “Negro” comment turned into a political crisis for the Senate Majority Leader. Before coverage of the earthquake in Haiti pushed the controversy from the news media’s attention, Republicans were calling for his resignation. They said it’s the same as when Trent Lott was forced to resign as Senate Majority Leader after speaking at a birthday celebration for then-Sen. Strom Thurmond. Lott said, “We wouldn’t have had all these problems over all these years” if Thurmond – who ran on a segregationist ticket – was elected president in 1948. Sorry GOP. It’s not the same.
Besides the political pressure on Reid to resign, his remarks also prompted talk about a national conversation on race. Professor Michael Eric Dyson said Reid’s remarks were a “teachable moment” for Barack Obama and the president needs to deal with the issue of race. Dyson added that Obama “runs from race like a black man runs from a cop.” That’s not an accurate analogy, nor is it particularly helpful when talking about race, but Obama would be an ideal choice begin a national conversation on race. Dr. Boyce Watkins, though, has a few reasons why Obama shouldn’t begin the conversation. One of which, alienating some white voters, Obama himself probably realizes.
It’s fitting that the issue of race comes up around the time we celebrate the Rev. Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr.’s birthday while at the same time looking back at Obama’s (historic, though disappointing to some) first year in office. While his ascendancy to the Oval Office is proof that America has come a long way regarding race, the national hissy-fit we just had over Harry Reid ungracefully speaking the truth is proof we have a long way to go. Former Al Gore Campaign Manager Donna Brazile said this about the Reid gaffe: “We don’t have a common language to discuss issues – especially issues like racism and the sensitivity around discussing race. And because of that, people often trip over themselves.”
Finding that common language would help start a national conversation on race. But what exactly is a “national conversation?” If the United States is going to make an effort to talk about race on both national and local levels, how would that actually happen? Logistically speaking, how would a conversation on a national scale work?
Here’s where Salahi Party Crasher Story could get bad for the Obama Administration. The White House is claiming separation of powers and not allowing White House social secretary Desiree Rogers to testify in front of the congressional committee looking into who let the Salahis into the party. That’s where the White House is drawing the line? At the presidential velvet rope? I don’t agree with the power grab that the Bush Administration made, but at least when they called “Executive Privilege” it was over something serious: Torture, starting a war under false pretenses, stuff like that. Some advice to Rahm and the president: let the White House staff testify. Whatever comes out won’t be as a bad as this story staying in the headlines.
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