Last Tuesday during President Obama’s press conference the President opined about civil discourse and misogynistic comments in the realm of public conversation as it relates to his daughters Sasha and Malia:
“One of the things I want them to do as they get older is engage in issues they care about, even ones I may not agree with them on.” “I want them to be able to speak their mind in a civil and thoughtful way. And I don‘t want them attacked or called horrible names because they’re being good citizens;”
[…]… and that we want to send a message to all of our young people that being part of a democracy involves argument and disagreements and debate, and we want you to be engaged, and there’s a way to do it that doesn’t involve you being demeaned and insulted, particularly when you are a private citizen”
Fast forward to Friday night in Atlanta at a fundraiser for the President. The proponent of all civil discourse sat in the audience being entertained by Cee Lo Green (seen here).
As we all know, every scintilla of a presidential appearance is controlled, evaluated and scripted in advance. The optics must reflect the Office Of The President, and the administrations tone and style. It really does strike a remarkable contrast between how our President defines “civility” and perhaps how the general electorate would define the same term.
I am reminded of the odd speech President Obama gave in January 2011 at the Arizona memorial following the Gabby Gifford shooting, “Together We Thrive“. The main thrust of the A “New Civility” indeed.
I continually find myself reminded just how phony this President really is. It isn’t just that this President doesn’t write his own speeches (most don’t anyway), and it isn’t just that he continually seizes moments in a staggeringly politically opportunistic way, after the misogynistic accusations from his surrogates were flung at everyone on the Right, from Rush Limbaugh, Sarah Palin and Sean Hannity, to ordinary Americans. No, that is irritating. But what is truly compromising these last straws are the blinding hypocrisies of the sloganeer in chief.
Just like the Tuscon rally was billed as a memorial to those wounded and those slain, yet was blatantly a campaign rally, the actions of this President do not match his words. While the President appears to espouse a tone of reconciliation to the divisiveness and rancor that his supporters and the media continually cause, the ‘in-real-life’ actions speak so loudly we cannot hear, nor focus upon, a word he’s saying.
Since the Sandra Fluke outrage, and subsequent Rush Limbaugh disparagement, the administration has constructed a “War on Women” slogan which is evident to be nothing more (and nothing less) than a political theme created to cause controversy and stop the bleeding abandonment from a female constituency. The cause for such abandonment is the exact same intellectual dishonesty which compromises the faux outrage. Some “new civility” eh?
So President Obama having delivered his Tuesday pontifications about “civil discourse” and citizens being “demeaned” and “insulted” sits in the audience being entertained by a supporter who gives everyone the middle finger while singing “Fuck You”.
I’m left to wonder how President Obama defines “civility” to Sasha and Malia?
