Oh, for Christ’s sake:
Conservative commentators are blasting President Obama after the president appeared to take a “selfie” at the memorial service for South African leader Nelson Mandela on Tuesday.
Obama and British Prime Minister David Cameron were spotted leaning in to look at the cellphone of Danish Prime Minister Helle Thorning Schmidt. First lady Michelle Obama, seated to the president’s left, is looking elsewhere.
“Thank you Mrs. Obama for knowing how to behave at a funeral,” tweeted RedState.com’s Erick Erickson.
Here’s my rebuttal:
There have been some funny Twitter pictures from that event. W looks bored out of his gourd. The section with Presidents Carter, Clinton (and Hillary and Chelsea), W (and Laura “Pickles”), and Obama (and Michelle) also included Bishop Desmond Tutu.
One of Tutu captures him looking away from W in a way that suggests a profound amount of Christian restraint to avoid administering some holy judgement.
Meanwhile, Lynne Cheney looks like Darth Sidious.
Got a link to that Tutu/Bush photo? Would love to see it. 5 years out of office and Dubya still manages to embarass our country abroad.
Also, did Bill speak at the memorial? I figure it was just sitting heads of state but heard that he and Mandela were good friends.
Tutu has been calling for Bush to be brought before an international court for the Iraq war. Eye rolling shows much restraint on Tutu’s part.
Cheney:
The very definition of “The Ugly American.”
But at least Cheney didn’t shoot anyone that day.
You could have ended the post right there.
Reminds me of the “concern” republicans had about the Paul Wellstone memorial, in which they were shocked – SHOCKED! that some liberal politics might be mildly on display. Every single one of those critics was happy as hell that wonderful man was dead, whether they’d admit it or not.
Same with Mandela. The american right never liked him, never supported him, and now just want to use his funeral to score cheap points.
Spitting on graves is all they’ve got.
And dancing on them. They like doing that, too. Pity they’re such terrible dancers.
i watched the service from 1am PST to 4am. it was a wonderful service. Obama stole the show. the UN guy was awesome.
i simply don’t care what confederates think about anything, much less what they think about South Africa, of all things.
and israel really made itself a smaller nation by snubbing the service.
and Israel really made itself a smaller nation by snubbing the service.
It was smaller long before today.
Not 2013 when the world honors the death of Mandela and GWB (given a lift with Laura on AF1) and Kissinger attend the memorial. They want the old Kissinger back:
(They don’t get that Kissinger has always gone where the money, power, and fame are the best.)
Which ever version you choose to espouse.The truth is it a lapse of politeness but anything more? Well…No!
As for comparing it to Cheney two points
I am sorry, Booman.
Please!!!
Obama has the blood of tens of thousands on his hands. Yeah, yeah…I know. He’s just trying to do his job. But…what is “his job” when you get right down to it? It is essentially the same job that Cheney was hired to perform…sustain the United States’ bogarting of the world’s food trough by economic imperialist means for as long as possible while keeping the population of the U.S. in a state of resigned servitude to the financial powers that support Obama’s position as frontman. He just does it better…more gently, more subtly…than did that old vampire Dick Cheney.
The problem lies with the paradigm, not with its enforcement. Change the paradigm in some manner and everything changes. For the better? I dunno. Gotta try something, because this shit is simply not working.
AG
Tens of thousands?
In what country?
In what country? In every country in which the United States has active combat troops, whether those troops are overt or covert. In every country that has been and continues to be destabilized by the United States by the use of any means including so-called “sanctions.” Directly shot in the head by U.S. troops? I do not believe any numbers of that sort. The Dept. of Defense lies through its teeth, as does every other federal department. That is their job. However, even those numbers if they were accurate would not begin to cover the absolute carnage that war exacts not only on the people of the countries where those wars occur but also on the occupying forces and their home countries as well.
“Tens of thousands” was a conservative statement. Hundreds of thousands would be more like it.
As long as the United States continues its policy of (covertly or overtly)
militarily enforced economic imperialism throughout the world…and I do not much care if it’s Cuba, Iran, Egypt, Iraq, Afghanistan, Central America or any of the other hundreds of places on this good green earth where the U.S. in engaged in economic or military/paramilitary warfare…the number of lives taken and the greater number of lives ruined is unacceptable on any level. This goes for Chicago, Philadelphia, Camden and Newark NJ, the ruins of Detroit and almost every other debt-stricken portion of the United States as well. These wars have broken both our economy and our society, and they must be stopped. Obama has made his compromises…most likely with good intentions (And you know where roads paved with those usually lead, right? Straight to hell.)…and he must stand accountable for the losses that have resulted from those compromises.
You don’t like this idea?
Fine.
You stand accountable as well.
The deaths and ruined lives are real. Unless you believe that the natural state of mankind is disaster and decay, they are undebatably caused by others’ actions. Someone, some set of actions caused and continued them.
I stand against them, myself.
You?
Apparently not.
AG
You should try to define what “militarily enforced economic imperialism” is and is not.
Until you do, it’s not clear what you are even talking about and how it differs from what China or Russia or Germany or Japan or Saudi Arabia or Iran are doing.
I do not really care what “China or Russia or Germany or Japan or Saudi Arabia or Iran” are doing, Booman. Let them learn the hard way, too. We have to stop doing what we are doing. And if you do not yet understand what that is, you simply haven’t been paying attention.
Why do we have to stop?
Because it ain’t working is why!!! At least superficially, it’s not about “right” or “wrong,” it is simply about what works and what does not work. Our gigantic military has been used as a bludgeon on most of the undeveloped/underdeveloped world since soon after WWII. So has our economic power. You don’t see that? Where you been at, brother?
Morality? Real “morality” consists of following the suggestions of the best and brightest of human beings for many centuries. Christ, Moses, Buddha, etc. And those “suggestions” are based on what works, long term.
“Do unto others as you would have them do unto you.”
Translation and extension? Sure?
“Or they will eventually rise up and do unto you as you have been doing unto them.”
Bet on it.
That’s where we are now. Overextended and under-rewarded. Time to cash in and balance out.
Now.
Before it’s too late.
AG