Barack-blocked
This might be old news, but funny as hell nonetheless. During a press conference in late 2006, Barack Obama inadvertently embarrassed a reporter in front of a girl he was trying to impress. The reporter later turned around and bitched about it on his paper’s op-ed page :
Obama owes me a public apology for making me look like a court jester and for blocking my shot.Until that time, Hillary or Giuliani will get my vote.
Here’s what happened next :
As Mother Jones put it, “Presidential material? Definitely.”
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You know all that nonsense about which alcoholic President people would want to have a beer with? Now Obama sounds like the kind of guy who I’d really like to hang out with. He understands the fragile male ego.
The other way that politicians deal with fragile male egos is to do what Bush does. Insult them directly. Give them demeaning nicknames. And to show that they “have a good sense of humor” they laugh and swallow it. Guys who survived high school know this kind of guy. If you protest they say, “What’s the problem, can’t you take a joke?”
Think about all the PhDs and Presidents of universities that President Bush has insulted over the years with this stock joke, “I may have been a C student, but I’m the President and this PhD University president works for me!” He does it publicly and it is a show of domination. The message? Power and connections trump brains and hard work.
For a change wouldn’t it be nice for one of those PhDs or university presidents, to say,
“Mr. President. Thank you for attending. But no thank you for the insult. You have insulted hundreds of hard working educated people over the years and I for one am sick of it. Stop it.
I’m sure that you think you are an inspiration to C students everywhere, but did you really have to insult my hard work and the hard work of all the students here who got good grades? What message are you sending to the hard working A and B students? That picking the right family and having the right friends is really what matters? By your insisting that you show your dominance over the educated in this public forum you think that you are connecting to the “regular folks” who are uneducated, but most regular people that I know don’t have multi-millionaire and billionaire family friends pulling strings to get them opportunities for education and jobs like you did. Opportunities that you then squandered. They didn’t go to the private schools like Andover, they didn’t get the shot at the elite education of Yale and Harvard that you got. So how dare you turn around and insult those who worked hard to get good grades as a cheap way to align yourself with “the regular Joe”. For years the professors and educators that you have insulted with your cheap joke– your gambit to connect you with “the regular folks”– has gone unanswered. Sadly we have all been too polite and too afraid of retribution to say, “Stop it.”
Why the insults? Do you think it endears you to the regular Joe. Regular Joes and Janes don’t usually take the opportunity to insult their host’s hard work and education every chance they get. You clearly don’t value education, because if you did you won’t mock those of us who think that it’s not just the grade but also the effort that counts and you aren’t honoring the efforts of real C, B or A students. Our country needs smart people who are also hard workers. You are neither.
My name is Dr. (insert name) I was a hardworking student and now I have a PhD and I’m damn proud of it. And remember Mr. President, I don’t work for you. You work for me. I don’t ever want to read another news story about you opening up with your standard insulting joke. That “joke” earns you an F. Not as a student, but as a President and human being.”
Comment by spocko — March 17, 2008 @ 11:37 am