The numbers evidently originate with the Press Trust of India, whose report was linked on the Drudge Report and picked up by Fox News host Glenn Beck. The news agency also wrongly said that the White House had blocked off the entire Taj Mahal Palace hotel for Obama’s visit and that the U.S. was stationing 34 warships–roughly 10 percent of the naval fleet–off the coast of Mumbai for security reasons. – Yahoo News
The one thing about the wing-nuts is that they are consistent. If they find a game plan that works they continue to use it no matter what. Remember how they sold the Iraq War by quoting unnamed sources who would then quote other unnamed sources until they created this circular argument based on no facts. Well it appears they are back to their old tricks again only this time it is concerning the President’s trip to India. Let’s be clear this isn’t about spending or belt-tightening. This is about whether this President deserves to travel as past Presidents have done while representing American interests around the world.
The one thing about the wing-nuts is that they are consistent. If they find a game plan that works they continue to use it no matter what. Remember how they sold the Iraq War by quoting unnamed sources who would then quote other unnamed sources until they created this circular argument based on no facts. Well it appears they are back to their old tricks again only this time it is concerning the President’s trip to India. Let’s be clear this isn’t about spending or belt-tightening. This is about whether this President deserves to travel as past Presidents have done while representing American interests around the world.
Here is what is troubling to me about this canard and all of the other “concerns” about this first family’s trips no matter where they are to, there is this underlying current that they somehow do not deserve to travel as other Presidents and first families have traveled in the past. This President and this first family are being asked to travel in coach while no one has ever questioned the travel arrangements of any of our other chief executives. The question then becomes why now? I don’t recall anyone questioning how much it cost to create W’s infamous “Mission Accomplished” landing and potential political ad funded by the American taxpayers. It is as if for some reason the current President is not worthy of all of the trappings of the office of the Presidency of the US.
The crazy part is this. When he was first elected the wing-nuts attacked the first family because they were going to “ghettoize” the White House with bar-b-ques and drunken parties on the front lawn and now they are attacking him for keeping the prestige of the office when he travels. Here is the thing this isn’t about the recession or the amount spent on this trip. This is about whether this President deserves the privileges given to other Presidents? For some reason this President doesn’t measure up to past Presidents and therefore doesn’t deserve to travel as all other Presidents have traveled. America has always prided itself on providing every President what he has needed while conducting business in the name of America. Our national prestige is now being sacrificed for what particular purpose?
Despite continued denials from the wing-nuts their goal from day one has been to delegitimize this President and to subtly and not so subtly attack him personally. This isn’t about the health-care reforms, or the financial reforms, or even the stimulus. This is about President Obama’s personal character and not just his but his family as well. Would we allow the children and First Ladies of previous white Presidents to be treated with such disrespect? The troubling fact is that regardless of our personal feelings about the officeholder we as a nation have always respected the office, but today that concept that we were taught as children is now being undermined. If we as Americans regardless of our political leanings continue to allow this constant chipping away and undermining of our institutions it won’t be long before we are faced with all-out anarchy.
With confidence and trust in our institutions at an all-time low there are those who would further undermine our system for the sake of short-term political gain. The time has come for all Americans to stand up and put an end to this practice of attacking the President not because they disagree with his policies but that they disagree with his legitimacy to be the President. After the results of the last election I am not so sure that we as a nation are prepared to repudiate these unsavory tactics and to elevate our political discourse back to policy issues. The last election has shown us that fear and obstructionism are still running rampant and are still working to motivate a proportion of the electorate.
President Obama just like any other President deserves to be treated with the same respect as all previous Presidents. He does not deserve to be housed at Motel 6 and fly commercial just because he is black. This is the type of hypocrisy that continues to undermine our standing in the world and especially towards non-white and non-Christian populations. One of these days we are going to learn that there are far more non-whites in the world than whites and if we continue to treat this President as if this is the Jim Crow south we will do so at our own peril. Not only is it a bad precedence for the world it is a bad precedence for our own democracy. If we continue to weaken our institutions then no one should be surprised if they collapse. If government and our institutions do not function then what shall they be replaced with? Corporations? God help us if that is our alternative. The funny thing is that most of those who are attempting to undermine this President’s legitimacy are the same ones who claim to support “Constitutional Government”. I guess they missed the part about the office of the President and its place in our history.
Like Bachmann, several right-leaning pundits — including Michelle Malkin and Fox News personalities like Eric Bolling and Sean Hannity — have run with the $200 million per day number, touting it as proof that wasteful spending is alive and well. – AOL News
The tyranny of a prince in an oligarchy is not so dangerous to the public welfare as the apathy of a citizen in a democracy – Charles de Montesquieu
The Disputed Truth
You hit the nail on the head with this diary. My SIL told a joke last night that more or less implied that Michelle had been in a whore house. He told my brother but I was sitting on the other side. I wanted to say something, but there are problems in that family and no way will I add to my daughter’s stress.
I came over here to Booman, to see if the comments regarding our president were a little more civil. It looks like they are, so I will be back.
When I saw Michele Bachmann claiming that Obama’s trip to India was costing $200 million a day, that sounded inflated beyond any reality. (The White House won’t release the official numbers, but say this is way off the actual cost.) So I wondered, as did Anderson Cooper who asked, where she got her information. She cited an Indian news site, and I thought immediately, I’ll bet I know which one.
How could I possibly know which source in India she had used?
Because there’s a site called “India Daily” that seems to carry stories that might well be deliberate disinformation. I learned of this site while watching emails between people connected with the intelligence and military establishment fly by me in private correspondence over the last few years. More than once I’ve thought, this site can’t be `real.’
So when Bachmann’s story surfaced, I tracked down the early stories on the Web. Sure enough, it appears India Daily was the original source, and others picked it up from there, including the site you mention.
India Daily is a strange site. There’s no way to submit articles. There’s no contact information. There’s a generic form to submit if you want to advertise on the site. (I wonder if anyone ever answers?) Given the strange nature of the articles that appeared there over time, in the back of my mind, I’ve always suspected that site was not run by anyone in India. While there appear to be stories about India, those were never the links and stories sent to me. I’m wishing now I had saved the links so you could see what I mean.
The site is a .com domain, which is also odd, because all countries have their own domain. Indian sites end with .in for India, just as UK sites end with .uk. Der Spiegel, the famous German magazine, is in the .de (Deutschland) domain.
In the wake of the Bachmann slur, I decided to put this to the test. I used a whois server to find out who owned the domain. It’s registered under GoDaddy.com, a US company headquartered in Arizona and indeed, the server is definitely located in Arizona.
Is IndiaDaily.com a CIA site? Who really runs this site?
I would NEVER cite anything published on this site as fact, from what I’ve seen of it. I’d not be impressed by others who did.
Who is behind this site? Who sent Bachmann a link to it? (I can hardly imagine her reading that site as part of her daily browsing.) In the past, the CIA had to work hard to plant a story and hope it would blowback to the United States. Now, it might be as easy as posting to an Arizona server….
Or perhaps a nauseating Rovian flavor spicing up these “stories”.
I am a newbie here and just wanna say Hi to everyone. I am Crystal from Louisiana, US.
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