How dare they assault SP the long suffering
Posted By: With a pack of irrefutible facts! amfm on 2008-09-08
In Reply to: The Speech to Nowhere - sm
su
Complete Discussion Below:  marks the location of current message within thread
- The Speech to Nowhere - sm
- How dare they assault SP the long suffering - With a pack of irrefutible facts! amfm
The messages you are viewing
are archived/old.
To view latest messages and participate in discussions, select
the boards given in left menu
Other related messages found in our database
Suffering in the US and elsewhere...sm
Granted, for the most part, we in the US live a rather privileged life in comparison to so many other countries, such as the third world countries where children are starving and there are no jobs to be had. The Bible speaks of even the "islands of the seas" being affected by the rule of the Antichrist. I believe, as do some Bible scholars, that this could represent the US. With the push toward a "global economy" and Obama's policy to "change the world," I believe the end times are within sight. If Obama is not "The One" (and he has even called himself that), then he most definitely is a predecessor. The Bible says that in the end times, there will rumors and people saying "Look, here he is" or "There is the One." These rumors could have already been fulfilled with people saying that Bush or Hitler or is the antichrist. It is also said that the true Antichrist will appeal to the masses and will be so eloquent of tongue that even the elect will be fooled, "the elect" referring either to those who call themselves Christians who do not really believe in all the Bible says or to those who consider themselves to be quite educated and sophisticated and above being fooled.
The poster below who posted what her mother said is right. If the time is right, nothing we can do will change the outcome of this election. However, people everywhere need to be informed and aware and prepared for this election as it could usher in the beginning of the end.
OH...I know dealerships are suffering.
My husband is the general manager of a Chevorlet dealership and it isn't pretty. We built a brand new house 2-3 years ago when the economy was booming and now we are sweating it out wondering how long these dealerships can actually stay alive with the way things are. If my husband loses his job, I'm not sure what he will do. He has always worked in a dealership. Things are really scary for us right now. We aren't behind in anything but if his dealership should close or he lose his job.....we could potentially be in some deep sh!t.
Thankfully his dealership isn't losing money. They either make a little or at least break even. The dealerships that survive this will be in a good position when and if the economy starts up again because there won't be as much competition, etc. So we are hoping his dealership makes it through this and we are hoping they can just keep plugging along and breaking even.
However, my brother works in a plant and has three kids and a wife to support and I really don't know how much longer his job will be there. Then what is he to do. He never overextended himself. He always pays his bills. What will happen if he loses his job. It is just scary as crap out there.
Anyone suffering from auditory and
Do you hear yourself, or are the voices inside your head drowning out your own?
Various Bush members enjoy profit from human suffering.
Two articles below:
http://www.latimes.com/news/printedition/asection/la-na-bucky23mar23,1,7624344.story?ctrack=1&cset=true
From the Los Angeles Times
Bush's Uncle Earned Millions in War Firm Sale
An SEC filing shows William H.T. Bush collected about $1.9 million in cash, plus stock valued at $800,000, from the deal.
By Walter F. Roche Jr.
Times Staff Writer
March 23, 2006
WASHINGTON — As President Bush embarks on a new effort to shore up public support for the war in Iraq, an uncle of the commander in chief is collecting $2.7 million in cash and stock from the recent sale of a company that profited from the war.
A report filed with the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission shows that William H.T. Bush collected just under $1.9 million in cash plus stock valued at more than $800,000 from the sale of Engineered Support Systems Inc. to DRS Technologies of New Jersey.
The $1.7-billion deal closed Jan. 31. Both firms have extensive military contracts.
William Bush was a director of Engineered Support Systems. Recent SEC filings show he was paid cash and DRS stock in exchange for shares and options he obtained as a director.
Before DRS purchased it, Missouri-based ESSI experienced record growth as a result of expanded U.S. military contracts — many to supply U.S. efforts in Iraq and Afghanistan.
The contracts, some awarded on a no-bid basis, include a $77-million deal to refit military vehicles with armor for use in Iraq.
Other ESSI products used in the war include radar and detection services, field medical stations and field electrical generator units.
SEC filings show that two federal investigations of ESSI are underway. One inquiry involves a stop order from the government on the field generators. The order was issued because the units didn't operate properly.
The generator contract was a major source of revenue. SEC files show that ESSI did not tell stockholders about the stop order until last June, about seven months after it was issued.
During the interim, several ESSI executives, including Bush's uncle, cashed in stock and stock options worth millions of dollars, the filings show.
According to one recent filing, the SEC and the U.S. attorney in St. Louis are investigating the delayed disclosure and other matters.
Unnamed members of the ESSI board and corporate officers have been subpoenaed in the inquiry, according to documents.
SEC filings show that William Bush, 67, exercised options on 8,348 shares of ESSI stock on Jan. 18, 2005, about two months after the stop order was issued and six months before it was disclosed. He collected about $450,000 in cash.
Bush, known as Uncle Bucky in the president's family, joined ESSI's board in 2000, several months before his nephew became president.
He heads a St. Louis investment firm and is the youngest brother of former President George H.W. Bush.
He declined to comment Wednesday. However, in an interview last year, he said he played no role in ESSI's winning federal contracts.
I don't make any calls to the 202 [Washington, D.C.] area code, he said.
Patricia Williamson, a spokeswoman for DRS, would not comment on the status of the federal investigations.
The company has said it is cooperating in the probes, which also involve an ESSI insurance contract.
_________________________________________________________________
March 22, 2006, 11:58PM
Former first lady's donation aids son
Katrina funds earmarked to pay for Neil Bush's software program
By CYNTHIA LEONOR GARZA
Copyright 2006 Houston Chronicle
Former first lady Barbara Bush donated an undisclosed amount of money to the Bush-Clinton Katrina Fund with specific instructions that the money be spent with an educational software company owned by her son Neil.
Since then, the Ignite Learning program has been given to eight area schools that took in substantial numbers of Hurricane Katrina evacuees.
Mrs. Bush wanted to do something specifically for education and specifically for the thousands of students flooding into the Houston schools, said Jean Becker, former President Bush's chief of staff. She knew that HISD was using this software program, and she's very excited about this program, so she wanted to make it possible for them to expand the use of this program.
The former first lady plans to visit a Houston Independent School District campus using the Ignite program today to call on local business leaders to support schools and education.
The trip to Fleming Middle School is intended to showcase Bush's commitment to education for both Houston-area and New Orleans evacuee students, according to a press release issued Wednesday by Ignite.
Fleming, which has more than 170 New Orleans students, was one of eight area schools chosen by the Harris County Department of Education to receive a donated COW, or Curriculum on Wheels, multimedia program after Hurricane Katrina.
Neil Bush founded Austin-based Ignite Learning, which produces the COW program, in 1999.
Becker said she wasn't at liberty to divulge how much money the Bush family gave to the hurricane funds, but said the rest of their donation was not earmarked for anything.
Nationally, some other donors also specified how they wanted their donations spent, Becker said.
For example, one man wanted his money to go to Habitat for Humanity but via the former presidents' fund. Nearly $1 million has been raised for the local fund and more than $120 million for the national.
Regarding the fact that Bush's earmarked donation also benefited her son's company, Becker said, Mrs. Bush is obviously an enthusiastic supporter of her son. She is genuinely supportive of his program, and has received many letters from educators who support it. Bush honestly felt this would be a great way to help the (evacuee) students.
Barbara and Neil Bush presented the donated programs to Houston-area schools this winter.
Districts that received the free curriculum include Houston, Alvin, Katy, Pearland and Spring and the New Orleans West charter school.
There are 40 Ignite programs being used in the Houston area, and 15 in the Houston school district, said Ken Leonard, president of Ignite.
Information about the effectiveness of the program, through district-generated reports, was not readily available Wednesday, according to an HISD spokeswoman.
Two years ago, the school district raised eyebrows when it expanded the program by relying heavily on private donations.
In February 2004, the Houston school board unanimously agreed to accept $115,000 in charitable donations from businesses and individuals who insisted the money be spent on Ignite. The money covered half the bill for the software, which cost $10,000 per school.
The deal raised conflict of interest concerns because Neil Bush and company officials helped solicit the donations for the HISD Foundation, a philanthropic group that raises money for the district.
HISD school principals decide for themselves whether to spend their budgeted money on Ignite.
Leonard said that in the past six to eight months, the company has hired national sales representatives across the country — in Florida, New York, Pennsylvania, Georgia and Nevada — in hopes of expanding beyond Texas. Currently, about 80 percent of the company's customers are from Texas.
Last year, Neil Bush reportedly toured former Soviet Union countries promoting Ignite with Russian tycoon Boris Berezovsky.
According to the Times of London, Berezovsky, a former Kremlin insider now living in Britain, is wanted on criminal charges in Moscow accusing him of seeking to stage a coup against President Vladimir Putin.
The purpose of today's event is to showcase everyone's efforts in helping the hurricane evacuee students who ended up in Houston, Leonard said.
We have a role, but we're not the leader in this, Leonard said. He also acknowledged that his company will benefit from the former first lady's visit.
Barbara Bush is expected to observe both teachers and students using the Ignite Learning program while touring classrooms, according to the Ignite press release.
During a short reception, teachers and students will give testimonials about the program and Bush will encourage community business leaders to have a stronger presence in supporting schools and education, the press release said.
The free-standing instructional tools that are not dependent on the Internet. They include a built-in computer, projector and speakers and come pre-loaded with science and social studies courses.
cynthia.garza@chron.com
HoustonChronicle.com -- http://www.HoustonChronicle.com | Section: Houston & Texas
This article is: http://www.chron.com/disp/story.mpl/headline/metro/3742329.html
You'll be waiting a long, long time, then, cuz she's going to do
How dare you!
Just because she differs from your view points doesn't mean she shouldn't be allowed to be on this board. I for one agree with a lot of what Sam says. This board is way right-winged. It needs people like Sam on here to bring focus to the other side. If you don't care for her posts and opinions, be the bigger person and ignore them instead of whining and complaining.
I'M WITH YOU SAM!!! 
How dare you
You know, you really hurt my feelings today. I know that probably doesn't matter to you, but today I really realized that this is the world I am bringing my daughter up in and there is nothing I can do about it...nothing. Mean, hurtful people. I would lay down my life for my daughter without a thought to save her, but there is nothing I can do to save her from this cold, hateful world that we live in. How dare you treat me like that? How dare you be so mean! How can people act like this? I'm not some sheltered idiot who doesn't know which way is up, but I have never had anyone be so hurtful and mean in my adult life. If my FOUR-YEAR-OLD ever talked to anyone in the way that you just talked to me, there would be some serious disciplinary action. Shame on you.
How dare he!!
You mean Obama actually wants to encourage teenagers and young adults to be decent human beings and productive members of society. The horror of it is beyond comprehension!!
How dare they!!
How dare homosexuals want the right to be married and enjoy the benefits thereof, just like "normal people." How dare they "draw attention to themselves" demanding rights and equality.
Give me a break. Anyone that wants to commit themselves to a relationship should have the ability to do so. Why should a gay couple not be allowed to "live happily ever after" and have the rights (and problems) that go with it.
If you don't "believe" in gay marriage, than don't marry someone of your own sex.
Big Bad, How Dare You
Forget Rufus Wainwright in the music list? ;-)
He died a long, long time ago! (If he was ever
Don't force your beliefs on others. It further devalues your faith in the eyes of others.
Read if you dare
RUSH: My friends, there's another reason why the Sheehan thing is going to derail, why this train is going to derail, and that's because look at who her public relations outfit is. It's the mainstream press. They don't have universal respect anymore. They don't even have any concept of how they are harming her cause by championing it, but I want to talk about something larger here with you liberals. I know there are a lot of you here in the audience. We hear from you now and then, and it may be a waste of my time but I'm going to try it anyway. But I think you all need to look at things differently than you do. You need to take your focus off of government. You know how absurd it is for us to hear that a war is ignoble because the president's kids aren't there or because congressmen's kids aren't there? Do you know how irrelevant that is? Do you know who makes this country work? Can I ask you people on the left if you have the slightest idea who makes this country work? Because I'll tell you, it's not the president, I don't care who he is, and it's not Congress, and I don't care who they are. The people who make this country work are the people, and they're people you've never heard of. They are people unlike Cindy Sheehan, who are not seeking publicity, they are not seeking fame. They take life seriously. They try to mix their work and pleasure into a proper balance. They try to raise their kids the right way. They're doing everything they can to follow the straight-and-narrow. They sometimes slip off, but the people who make this country work, the fabled average American. That's who you liberals condemn, whether you know it or not. That's who you impugn. It's always been the case.
World War II was not won by Eisenhower. World War II was not won by FDR. World War II was not won by any particular leader. World War II was not won by Patton. Everybody played a role. But without the sons and daughters of the American people, this country wouldn't amount to anything. It is the people who make this country work, and the ease with which those of you on the left disparage the people in this country while you seek to focus all attention on government, is a sight to behold, and it is why you are losing elections; it is why you are losing favor; it is why you are becoming more fringe and extreme and kooky, because you've lost touch. You've lost contact. You've lost all ability to understand who it is that comprises the heart and soul of this country. You have no clue who the backbone of this country is; but I will tell you this: it's not Cindy Sheehan and it's not one member of her entourage in a ditch in Crawford, Texas. Those people are a bunch of squatters. Those people right now are contributing nothing to the greatness or future of this country. Neither are the members of the media who are down there trying to elevate all those people in the ditch to be superheroes. There's not one of them that comes anywhere near rating the title of hero. They are nothing but a bunch of squatters who are miserable and unhappy for who knows whatever reasons and deciding to take it out on people who they think have control over their lives. In this case, with a bunch of liberals, it's government. You want government to have control over your life, you want government to be able to do this and that for your friends and neighbors and help you, but the simple truth of this country is that it's the people who make this country work. It is the people who comprise the economy.
It is the people who comprise the morality. It is the people of this country who determine the ethics. It is the people of this country, and that's what you're upset about because you're in the minority. The people of this country, the people who make this country work differ from you in tremendous ways. They are religious. They are God-fearing. They respect values and morality. They know what's right and they know what's wrong, and they do their best to abide. You are offended by all that, claiming they don't have the right to make such decisions, while you sit around and make no decisions whatsoever because you're willing to totally put your life in the hands of some liberal politician and that will take you off the hook for having to make any decision about your life or anybody else's. Well, that's not how the country works. This country works on the basis of an educated and informed public seeking excellence in their own lives to whatever degree they wish it. People pursuing life the best they can, using freedom, God-given freedom -- and for you to call here and to come up with something as irrelevant as to say this war is not worth it because the president's kids aren't there or because nobody from Washington's kids are there doesn't say a thing about the war effort, doesn't say one thing about it, doesn't make it noble, doesn't make it ignoble, doesn't make it anything, because the war is taking place. Whether you agree with the fact that it's going on or not, we all have come to the decision that it's best that we win it. You haven't even joined us on that. You hope we lose it. You want to lose it because you want to embarrass the leaders of the country. What must your lives be like? |
|
|
Are your lives so endless, baseless, and void of substance that the only pleasure you get from life is through watching the misery of others and trying to cause misery for others? Are you so incapable of enjoying the God-given gift of life that you've got, that you can only do so when other people are suffering, hopefully as a result of actions you've taken? What must it be like to be you people? What must it be like to get up every day and to have to go to your calendar and write "Destroy somebody today. Destroy something today. Destroy America today"? What must that be like? When you look out across the country and you see a burgeoning economy, you see the lone world superpower -- and it's not because of any president, and it's not because of any weapon, and it's not because of any military, it's because of the people of this country and our values and our Constitution. We're no different than any other people, other than we have freedom -- and you don't even like that! You only want freedom for yourselves, defined as you define it. So people can't say things that offend you, they can't do things that offend you, we can't have stupid names for sports teams. The absurdity of this whole political correctness movement. We can't have some team called the Redskins, we can't have some team called the Seminoles. Don't you understand these team names do it, it's an honor? Do you think a school calls itself the Seminoles to make fun of the Seminoles or are they trying to build themselves up? It's a matter of pride. But you people are so miserably unhappy that you have to find ways to constantly make everybody else around you unhappy, and so you go hang around with a woman who's crazed out of her mind in a ditch in Crawford, Texas, and then you have the audacity to call here and tell us that you are the great ones, that you're the ones that care, that you're the ones that have this country's best interests at heart.
If it were up to you people we wouldn't exist as a country today, you would have given in to the Soviets long ago, you would have appeased the Soviet communists. You would appease Iran right now, you probably wouldn't have cared about the war on terror or the bombing on 9/11. You would have sought out bin Laden and tried to make a deal with him, and this country exists today only because we have been able to prevent you from gaining power to do that kind of thing. We've had our run-ins with Neville Chamberlain types and you're the modern incarnation. To sit here, to actually have the gall to call this program and advance something you think as an intellectual argument that Cindy Sheehan's cause is noble, because the president's daughters aren't in Iraq, or congressmen's sons and daughters aren't in Iraq, have you no shame? Do you realize whose sons and daughters are? Do you understand it's voluntary? Do you understand these are people who are offering their lives in sacrifice for things they believe in? And what do you do? You come along and you try to disabuse them of their belief by telling them that they're wrong and that their country sucks. Well, to the extent that they think their country sucks it's because of you and your efforts to constantly undermine this country's best interests and our desires and efforts to protect the people of this country and to bring freedom to as many others in this world as possible. You people on the left used to be the ones that were all for civil rights around the world. You were all for human rights. Now all of a sudden you couldn't care less about the status of Iraqis. You couldn't care less. It's gotten so absurd, now that Howard Dean said on TV that if this new constitution is enacted as written, that the women of Iraq are going to be worse off than they were under Saddam Hussein.
Do you realize how patently absurd and bordering on insane that comment is? No, you don't. Because you think so little of your own country, you think so little of this president, you have such little faith in the ideals that have combined to make this a great country, that you assume it's worse here than anywhere else, and the places that it is bad is because of us, either through environmental pollution, or whatever cockamamie, asinine, stupid, ignoramus idea you can come up with. It's gotten to the point now where it is common to go on Democrat websites and read about the pleasure it would bring if the president were assassinated. It is now common to read letters to the editors in newspapers which say it would be fun if bin Laden actually came over here and slit Bush's throat, which is what a supporter of Sheehan wrote to a letter of the editor in one of the newspapers in this country. Yes, it would have been better if bin Laden would have just come here and slit Bush's throat. Do you have any idea how you people are perceived? Do you have the slightest idea how the decent people who make this country work perceive you? It is not with any respect. It is with contempt and it's with sorrow. But it's also with this realization: This country, if it is to survive, cannot be turned over to you people to lead and to run, because we will cease to exist as the United States the day that happens, and mark my word. It ain't going to happen.
|
why not have him fired, I mean how dare he?
for that matter, fire anyone and everyone who ever says or does anything you do not agree with. There you go, problem solved. Maybe you could all go to Alaska to live and only allow people there who agree with you and you could have your own world while you are at it and never be bothered with the poor or the sick, you know - I mean, what nerve these people have right?
How dare you post here and not go through . . .
pages of past posts to make sure it hasn't already been discussed. You misinformed liberal!!! LOL.
how dare you say that anyone died for no...
reason!!!? Saddam was a terrible mass murderer and needed to be taken care of. We should have never let it get this far. I am sure that the men and women who died did not think that it was for no reason.
Yep....they don't dare leave the US
The Hague (World Court) has pretty much charged Rumsfeld, Cheney and Bush with war crimes.
on January 26, United Nations Special Rapporteur on Torture Manfred Nowak insisted that the pursuit of Bush and members of his administration for the torture of terror war prisoners is crucial if justice is to be served.
Nowak added that he believes enough evidence exists currently to proceed with the prosecution of Donald Rumsfeld, the former Secretary of Defense who was credited as being highly influential in the crafting and push for America's invasion of Iraq and the prior administration's abusive interrogation tactics.
And I'm told to forget about Bush - NO FREAKING WAY! This sucks out loud!!!
link posted here - don't ya dare look
http://meaningfuldistractions.wordpress.com/2008/09/03/news_national_enquirer_promises_more_on_alleged_sarah_palin_affair_78787/
Right on...freedom of speech...how dare we have that right
you included, of course.
You mean the other women who dare to present
Americans are not a monolith.
Don't you dare suggest we don't pray to the same God
you are bad
Puleeze -- dare we look at the dem posts?
Palintology, ageism, free trade (like that's a bad word), Keating 5, feminist's vote. My list could go on. It's not a 1-way street. I can admit that; too bad you can't.
Lest we forget accountability, how-dare you ask?
x
That's how I feel. How dare the victims be judged.sm
while we sit cumfy in front of our PCs and eat popcorn. That kind of stuff makes me SICK!
While she does deserve our thoughts and prayers, I dare say...
some will say she deserves as much respect as the left showed to Mrs. Palin's handicapped child and pregnant daughter.
How dare you suggest that people are voting
for Obama based on emotion? The statistics are 25 million people that are voting don't even watch or read the news and don't have a clue what is really going on with this campaign, and guess what, those (I will say politely) UNINFORMED people are the ones that McPalin are targeting heavily. Boy, talk about desperation, when you have to resort to praying on the gullible ignorant to get a vote!
No it's not. Use google, if you dare. Some states are raising the age to 30
I have no problem with children who need healthcare. Children. Not adults.
It's just another social welfare program, when they raise the age to 30 (as if age 25 wasn't old enough to be still called a child).
Okay. I dared. *yawn* Now, tell me something *davebuoy* Do YOU *dare* to put on the uniform and go
Or are you like the rest of your lowly cowardly bunch who just don't have the guts?
That's a rhetorical question, davie. It's obvious that Rush speaks for you, so I already know the cowardly answer.
By the way, don't you think it's rather childish to post something about one of your heroes on the liberal board and then to run back to the conservative board, bragging about it, like you did something special? If anything, I'm guessing you're in the elephant dog house now, daviebuoy, because it didn't incite the anger and hatefulness that you were so obviously trying to achieve. I realize things have been slow for all you hate addicts lately, but don't despair. One of your beloved "ushes" (be it "B" or "R") is bound to do something else controversial, unethical or illegal before long, so things will heat up again soon enough, and all you hate addicts will get your "fix." Must be very painful for you, though, with all that hatred and intolerance just busting at the seams! 
You dare speak of character. Open your eyes to
nm
hahahah!! You are so insecure that you do not even dare to post a username and STICK to it..nm
nm
It's a dark day in America when voters dare to feel inspired and hopeful?
rasberries
how long
back and forth through my working day about 20 minutes or less.
Very long and quite sad
At least she got to go home to Ireland.
The Sunday Times October 09, 2005
Ireland: I wanted to slap him
George W Bush was so upset by Carole Coleman’s White House interview that an official complaint was lodged with the Irish embassy. The RTE journalist explains why the president made her blood boil
With just minutes to go to my interview with George W Bush, I was escorted to the White House library, where a staff member gave instructions on how to greet the president: “He’ll be coming in the door behind you, just stand up, turn around and extend your hand.”
I placed my notes on the coffee table, someone attached a microphone to my lapel, and I waited. The two chairs by the fireplace where the president and I would sit were at least six feet apart; clearly I would not be getting too close to him.
*
The room was well-lit, providing the kind of warm background conducive to a fireside chat. Several people had crowded in behind me. I counted five members of the White House film crew, there was a stenographer sitting in the corner and three or four security staff. I was still counting them when someone spoke. “He’s coming.”
I stood up, turned around to face the door and seconds later the president strode towards me. Bush appeared shorter than on camera and he looked stern and rather grey that day.
“Thanks for comin’, Mr President” I said, sticking out my hand. I had borrowed this greeting directly from him. When Bush made a speech at a rally or town hall, he always began by saying “Thanks for comin’” in his man-of-the-people manner. If he detected the humour in my greeting, he didn’t let on. He took my hand with a firm grip and, bringing his face right up close to mine, stared me straight in the eyes for several seconds, as though drinking in every detail of my face. He sat down and an aide attached a microphone to his jacket.
Nobody said a word. “We don’t address the president unless he speaks first,” a member of the film crew had told me earlier. The resulting silence seemed odd and discomforting, so I broke it. “How has your day been, Mr President?” Without looking up at me, he continued to straighten his tie and replied in a strong Texan drawl, “Very busy.”
This was followed by an even more disconcerting silence that, compounded by the six feet separating us, made it difficult to establish any rapport.
“Will Mrs Bush be seeing any of our beautiful country?” I tried again, attempting to warm things up by adding that I had heard that the taoiseach would be keeping him too busy for sightseeing on his forthcoming trip to Ireland.
“He’s putting me to work, is he? Have you not interviewed Laura?” “No, I haven’t met your wife.” I suggested that he put in a good word for me. He chuckled. By now he seemed settled and the crew looked ready, but still nobody spoke. I was beginning to worry that the clock may have already started on my 10 minutes.
“Are we all ready to go then?” I asked, looking around the room. The next voice I heard was the president’s. “I think we have a spunky one here,” he said, to nobody in particular.
MC, a White House press officer whom I’ve decided not to identify, had phoned me three days earlier to say that President Bush would do an interview with RTE. “Good news,” she had said. “It goes this Thursday at 4.20pm. You will have 10 minutes with the president and Turkish television will talk to him just before you.”
My initial excitement was dampened only by the timing, much later than I had hoped. The interview would take place just three hours before I was to fly back to Ireland to cover his arrival at the EU summit at Dromoland Castle in Clare and just 15 minutes before the start of RTE’s Prime Time programme on which the interview would be broadcast. It would be practically impossible to have the president on air in time for this.
“That’s fabulous,” I gushed, “but is there any way I could go before the Turks?” I had previously explained about the Prime Time programme, so MC knew the situation. “I’ll look into it,” she offered.
The interview sounded like quite a production. We wouldn’t be able to just saunter in there with a camera. It would be filmed by a White House crew, which would then hand over the tapes to me to be copied and returned the same day.
MC asked me for a list of questions and topics, which she said was required for policy purposes in case I should want to ask something that the president needed to be briefed on. The request did not seem odd to me then. The drill had been exactly the same for an interview I had conducted six months earlier with the then secretary of state, Colin Powell.
“What would you ask the president of the United States?” I enquired of everyone I met in the following days. Ideas had already been scribbled on scattered notepads in my bedroom, on scraps of paper in my handbag and on my desk, but once the date was confirmed, I mined suggestions from my peers in RTE and from foreign policy analysts. I grilled my friends in Washington and even pestered cab drivers. After turning everything over in my head, I settled on a list of 10 questions.
Securing a time swap with Turkish television ensured that I saw the president 10 minutes earlier, but there was still less than half an hour to bring the taped interview to the production place four blocks away in time for Prime Time.
Still, with the arrangements starting to fall into place, the sense of chaos receded and I returned to the questions, which by now were perpetually dancing around my head, even in my sleep. Reporters often begin a big interview by asking a soft question — to let the subject warm up before getting into the substance of the topic at hand. This was how I had initially intended to begin with Bush, but as I mentally rehearsed the likely scenario, I felt that too much time could be consumed by his first probable answer, praising Ireland and looking forward to his visit. We could, I had calculated, be into the third minute before even getting to the controversial topics. I decided to ditch the cordial introduction.The majority of the Irish public, as far as I could tell, was angry with Bush and did not want to hear a cosy fireside chat in the middle of the most disputed war since Vietnam. Instead of the kid-glove start, I would get down to business.
*
On Thursday June 24, Washington DC was bathed in a moist 90-degree heat, the type that makes you perspire all over after you have walked only two blocks. Stephanie and I arrived at the northwest gate of the White House that afternoon, and were directed to the Old Executive Office building, Vice President Dick Cheney’s headquarters, and were introduced to MC, whom I had spoken to only by phone. An elegant and confident woman, she was the cut of CJ, the feisty White House press secretary on The West Wing television drama.
A younger male sidekick named Colby stood close by nodding at everything she said and interjecting with a few comments of his own every now and then. Colby suggested that I ask the president about the yellow suit the taoiseach had worn the previous week at the G8 Summit on Sea Island in Georgia. I laughed loudly and then stopped to study his face for signs that he was joking — but he didn’t appear to be. “The president has a good comment on that,” he said.
The taoiseach’s suit had been a shade of cream, according to the Irish embassy. But alongside the other more conservatively dressed leaders, it had appeared as a bright yellow, leaving our Bertie looking more like the lead singer in a band than the official representative of the European Union. It was amusing at the time, but I was not about to raise a yellow suit with the president. “Really?” I asked politely. But a little red flag went up inside my head.
Then MC announced that she had some news for me. “There may be another interview in the pipeline for you,” she said.
“Me?”
“We’re not supposed to tell you this yet, but we are trying to set up an interview with the first lady.”
She indicated that the White House had already been in contact with RTE to make arrangements for the interview at Dromoland Castle, where the president and Mrs Bush would be staying. As an admirer of Laura Bush’s cool grace and sharp intellect, I had requested interviews with her several times previously without any reply. Now the first lady of the United States was being handed to me on a plate. I could not believe my luck.
“Of course, it’s not certain yet,” MC added. And then her sidekick dropped his second bombshell. “We’ll see how you get on with the president first.”
I’m sure I continued smiling, but I was stunned. What I understood from this was that if I pleased the White House with my questioning of the president, I would get to interview the first lady. Were they trying to ensure a soft ride for the president, or was I the new flavour of the month with the first family?
“I’m going to give the president his final briefing. Are there any further questions you want to pass on to him?” MC asked.
“No,” I said, “just tell him I want to chat.”
Stephanie and I locked eyes and headed for the ladies’ powder room, where we prayed.
Mr President,” I began. “You will arrive in Ireland in less than 24 hours’ time. While our political leaders will welcome you, unfortunately the majority of our people will not. They are annoyed about the war in Iraq and about Abu Ghraib. Are you bothered by what Irish people think?”
The president was reclining in his seat and had a half-smile on his face, a smile I had often seen when he had to deal with something he would rather not.
“Listen. I hope the Irish people understand the great values of our country. And if they think that a few soldiers represent the entirety of America, they don’t really understand America then . . . We are a compassionate country. We’re a strong country, and we’ll defend ourselves. But we help people. And we’ve helped the Irish and we’ll continue to do so. We’ve got a good relationship with Ireland.”
“And they are angry over Iraq as well and particularly the continuing death toll there,” I added, moving him on to the war that had claimed 100 Iraqi lives that very day. He continued to smile, but just barely.
“Well, I can understand that. People don’t like war. But what they should be angry about is the fact that there was a brutal dictator there that had destroyed lives and put them in mass graves and torture rooms . . . Look, Saddam Hussein had used weapons of mass destruction against his own people, against the neighbourhood. He was a brutal dictator who posed a threat that the United Nations voted unanimously to say, Mr Saddam Hussein . . .”
Having noted the tone of my questions, the president had now sat forward in his chair and had become animated, gesturing with his hands for emphasis. But as I listened to the history of Saddam Hussein and the weapons inspectors and the UN resolutions, my heart was sinking. He was resorting to the type of meandering stock answer I had heard scores of times and had hoped to avoid. Going back over this old ground could take two or three minutes and allow him to keep talking without dealing with the current state of the war. It was a filibuster of sorts. If I didn’t challenge him, the interview would be a wasted opportunity.
“But, Mr President, you didn’t find any weapons,” I interjected.
“Let me finish, let me finish. May I finish?”
With his hand raised, he requested that I stop speaking. He paused and looked me straight in the eye to make sure I had got the message. He wanted to continue, so I backed off and he went on. “The United Nations said, ‘Disarm or face serious consequences’. That’s what the United Nations said. And guess what? He didn’t disarm. He didn’t disclose his arms. And therefore he faced serious consequences. But we have found a capacity for him to make a weapon. See, he had the capacity to make weapons . . .”
I was now beginning to feel shut out of this event. He had the floor and he wasn’t letting me dance. My blood was boiling to such a point that I felt like slapping him. But I was dealing with the president of the United States; and he was too far away anyway. I suppose I had been naive to think that he was making himself available to me so I could spar with him or plumb the depths of his thought processes. Sitting there, I knew that I was nobody special and that this was just another opportunity for the president to repeat his mantra. He seemed irked to be faced with someone who wasn’t nodding gravely at him as he was speaking.
“But Mr President,” I interrupted again, “the world is a more dangerous place today. I don’t know whether you can see that or not.”
“Why do you say that?”
“There are terrorist bombings every single day. It’s now a daily event. It wasn’t like that two years ago.”
“What was it like on September 11 2001? It was a . . . there was relative calm, we . . .”
“But it’s your response to Iraq that’s considered . . .”
“Let me finish. Let me finish. Please. You ask the questions and I’ll answer them, if you don’t mind.”
His hand was raised again as if to indicate that he was not going to tolerate this. Again, I felt I had no choice but to keep quiet.
“On September 11 2001, we were attacked in an unprovoked fashion. Everybody thought the world was calm. There have been bombings since then — not because of my response to Iraq. There were bombings in Madrid, there were bombings in Istanbul. There were bombings in Bali. There were killings in Pakistan.”
He seemed to be finished, so I took a deep breath and tried once again. So far, facial expressions were defining this interview as much as anything that was said, so I focused on looking as if I was genuinely trying to fathom him.
“Indeed, Mr President, and I think Irish people understand that. But I think there is a feeling that the world has become a more dangerous place because you have taken the focus off Al-Qaeda and diverted into Iraq. Do you not see that the world is a more dangerous place? I saw four of your soldiers lying dead on the television the other day, a picture of four soldiers just lying there without their flak jackets.”
“Listen, nobody cares more about death than I do . . .”
“Is there a point or place . . .”
“Let me finish. Please. Let me finish, and then you can follow up, if you don’t mind.”
By now he was getting used to the rhythm of this interview and didn’t seem quite so taken aback by my attempt to take control of it. “Nobody cares more about death than I do. I care a lot about it. But I do believe the world is a safer place and becoming a safer place. I know that a free Iraq is going to be a necessary part of changing the world.”
The president seemed to be talking more openly now and from the heart rather than from a script. The history lesson on Saddam was over. “Listen, people join terrorist organisations because there’s no hope and there’s no chance to raise their families in a peaceful world where there is not freedom. And so the idea is to promote freedom and at the same time protect our security. And I do believe the world is becoming a better place, absolutely.”
I could not tell how much time had elapsed, maybe five or six minutes, so I moved quickly on to the question I most wanted to ask George Bush in person.
“Mr President, you are a man who has a great faith in God. I’ve heard you say many times that you strive to serve somebody greater than yourself.”
“Right.”
“Do you believe that the hand of God is guiding you in this war on terror?”
This question had been on my mind ever since September 11, when Bush began to invoke God in his speeches. He spoke as if he believed that his job of stewarding America through the attacks and beyond was somehow preordained, that he had been chosen for this role. He closed his eyes as he began to answer.
“Listen, I think that God . . . that my relationship with God is a very personal relationship. And I turn to the Good Lord for strength. I turn to the Good Lord for guidance. I turn to the Good Lord for forgiveness. But the God I know is not one that . . . the God I know is one that promotes peace and freedom. But I get great sustenance from my personal relationship.”
He sat forward again. “That doesn’t make me think I’m a better person than you are, by the way. Because one of the great admonitions in the Good Book is, ‘Don’t try to take a speck out of your eye if I’ve got a log in my own’.”
I suspected that he was also telling me that I should not judge him.
I switched to Ireland again and to the controversy then raging over the Irish government’s decision to allow the use of Shannon Airport for the transport of soldiers and weapons to the Gulf.
“You are going to meet Bertie Ahern when you arrive at Shannon Airport tomorrow. I guess he went out on a limb for you, presumably because of the great friendship between our two countries. Can you look him in the eye when you get there and say, ‘It will be worth it, it will work out’?”
“Absolutely. I wouldn’t be doing this, I wouldn’t have made the decision I did if I didn’t think the world would be better.”
I felt that the President had now become personally involved in this interview, even quoting a Bible passage, so I made one more stab at trying to get inside his head.
“Why is it that others don’t understand what you are about?”
He shrugged. “I don’t know. History will judge what I’m about.”
I could not remember my next question. My mind had gone completely blank. The president had not removed me from his gaze since we had begun and I wanted to keep up the eye contact.
If I diverted to my notes on the table beside me, he would know he had flustered me. For what seemed like an eternity, but probably no more than two seconds, I stared at him, searching his eyes for inspiration. It finally came.
“Can I just turn to the Middle East?”
“Sure.”
He talked about his personal commitment to solving that conflict. As he did so, I could see one of the White House crew signalling for me to wrap up the interview, but the president was in full flight.
“Like Iraq, the Palestinian and the Israeli issue is going to require good security measures,” he said.
Now out of time, I was fully aware that another question was pushing it, but I would never be here again and I had spent four years covering an administration that appeared to favour Israel at every turn.
“And perhaps a bit more even-handedness from America?” I asked, though it came out more as a comment.
The president did not see the look of horror on the faces of his staff as he began to defend his stance. “I’m the first president to have called for a Palestinian state. That to me sounds like a reasonable and balanced approach. I will not allow terrorists determine the fate, as best I can, of people who want to be free.”
Hands were signalling furiously now for me to end the interview.
“Mr President, thank you very much.”
“You’re welcome,” he replied, still half-smiling and half-frowning.
It was over. I felt like a delinquent child who had been reprimanded by a stern, unwavering father. My face must have been the same colour as my suit. Yet I also knew that we had discussed some important issues — probably more candidly than I had heard from President Bush in some time.
I was removing my microphone when he addressed me.
“Is that how you do it in Ireland — interrupting people all the time?”
I froze. He was not happy with me and was letting me know it.
“Yes,” I stuttered, determined to maintain my own half-smile.
I was aching to get out of there for a breath of air when I remembered that I had earlier discussed with staff the possibility of having my picture taken with the president. I had been told that, when the interview was over, I could stand up with him and the White House photographer would snap a picture. Not wanting to waste the opportunity, I stood up and asked him to join me.
“Oh, she wants the photograph now,” he said from his still-seated position. He rose, stood beside me and put an arm around my shoulder. Taking his cue, I put an arm up around his shoulder and we both grinned for the cameras.
In my haste to leave I almost forgot the tapes and had to be reminded by the film crew to take them. I and my assistants bolted out to the street. We ran, high heels and all, across Lafayette Park. Running through rush-hour traffic, I thought that this had to be about as crazy as a journalist’s job gets.
I had just been admonished by the president of the United States and now I was turning cartwheels in order to get the interview on air. As I dashed past a waste bin, I had a fleeting urge to throw in the tapes and run home instead.
At the studio I handed over the tapes. My phone rang. It was MC, and her voice was cold.
“We just want to say how disappointed we are in the way you conducted the interview,” she said.
“How is that?” I asked.
“You talked over the president, not letting him finish his answers.”
“Oh, I was just moving him on,” I said, explaining that I wanted some new insight from him, not two-year-old answers.
“He did give you plenty of new stuff.”
She estimated that I had interrupted the president eight times and added that I had upset him. I was upset too, I told her. The line started to break up; I was in a basement with a bad phone signal. I took her number and agreed to call her back. I dialled the White House number and she was on the line again.
“I’m here with Colby,” she indicated.
“Right.”
“You were given an opportunity to interview the leader of the free world and you blew it,” she began.
I was beginning to feel as if I might be dreaming. I had naively believed the American president was referred to as the “leader of the free world” only in an unofficial tongue-in-cheek sort of way by outsiders, and not among his closest staff.
“You were more vicious than any of the White House press corps or even some of them up on Capitol Hill . . .The president leads the interview,” she said.
“I don’t agree,” I replied, my initial worry now turning to frustration. “It’s the journalist’s job to lead the interview.”
It was suggested that perhaps I could edit the tapes to take out the interruptions, but I made it clear that this would not be possible.
As the conversation progressed, I learnt that I might find it difficult to secure further co-operation from the White House. A man’s voice then came on the line. Colby, I assumed. “And, it goes without saying, you can forget about the interview with Laura Bush.”
Clearly the White House had thought they would be dealing with an Irish “colleen” bowled over by the opportunity to interview the Bushes. If anyone there had done their research on RTE’s interviewing techniques, they might have known better.
MC also indicated that she would be contacting the Irish Embassy in Washington — in other words, an official complaint from Washington to Dublin.
“I don’t know how we are going to repair this relationship, but have a safe trip back to Ireland,” MC concluded. I told her I had not meant to upset her since she had been more than helpful to me. The conversation ended.
By the time I got to the control room, the Prime Time broadcast had just started. It was at the point of the first confrontation with the “leader of the free world” and those gathered around the monitors were glued to it. “Well done,” someone said. “This is great.”
I thought about the interview again as I climbed up the steps to RTE’s live camera position at Dromoland Castle to account for myself on the 6pm news next day. By now the White House had vented its anger to the Irish embassy in Washington. To make matters worse for the administration, the interview had made its way onto American television and CNN was replaying it around the world and by the end of the day it had been aired in Baghdad.
Had I been fair? Should I just have been more deferential to George Bush? I felt that I had simply done my job and shuddered at the thought of the backlash I would surely have faced in Ireland had I not challenged the president on matters that had changed the way America was viewed around the world.
Afterwards I bumped straight into the taoiseach, Bertie Ahern, who was waiting to go on air.
“Howya,” he said, winking.
“I hope this hasn’t caused you too much hassle, taoiseach,” I blurted.
“Arrah, don’t worry at all; you haven’t caused me one bit of hassle,” he smiled wryly.
I don’t know what he said to the president, who reportedly referred to the interview immediately upon arrival, but if the taoiseach was annoyed with me or with RTE, he didn’t show it.
When I returned to my little world on the street called M in Washington, I felt a tad more conspicuous than when I’d left for Ireland. Google was returning more than 100,000 results on the subject of the 12-minute interview. The vast majority of bloggers felt it was time a reporter had challenged Bush.
At the White House, the fact that I had been asked to submit questions prior to the interview generated enquiries from the American press corps. “Any time a reporter sits down with the president they are welcome to ask him whatever questions they want to ask,” Scott McClellan, the White House press secretary, told the CBS correspondent Bill Plante.
“Yes, but that’s beside the point,” replied Plante.
Under repeated questioning, McClellan conceded that other staff members might have asked for questions. “Certainly there will be staff-level discussion, talking about what issues reporters may want to bring up in some of these interviews. I mean that happens all the time.”
I had not been prevented from asking any of my questions. The only topics I had been warned away from were the Bush daughters Jenna and Barbara, regular fodder for the tabloids, and Michael Moore — neither of which was on my list.
Moore did notice RTE’s interview with the president and in the weeks that followed urged American journalists to follow the example of “that Irish woman”.
“In the end, doesn’t it always take the Irish to speak up?” he said. “She’s my hero. Where are the Carole Colemans in the US press?”
© Carole Coleman 2005
BOOK OFFER
This article is extracted from the opening chapter of Alleluia America! by Carole Coleman, to be published by The Liffey Press on October 14 at €14.95.
Okay, as long as....SM
you don't mind you, your loved ones, or someone else's loved ones to be killed BEFORE we take action, we can sit around and see who attacks us next. But then of course, if Saddam had ordered an attack, or slipped the goods to someone to carry that attack out, you would have blamed Bush for not acting on all that intelligence we had before the war. You simply cannot have it both ways. In light of the fact that 3000 people perished in a couple of hours, I'm not afraid to stand behind a president brave enough to stand up to any threat.
What took them so long????
I heard the 34% was down to 29% for Bush and 18% for Cheney. It has taken this complete break down of our government for people to finally see what most of us have known all along. BUSH IS NOT QUALIFIED TO BE PRESIDENT OF THE ROTARY CLUB, LET ALONE THE U.S. The words incompetence and tin ear and arrogance are now coming out of the mouths of the staunchest of Republicans, senators, congressmen, strategists, advisors, etc. And the outright lies are finally coming to light, thanks to videotape. Of course we only have the pre Katrina tape but it shows those who absolutely refused to entertain the thought that his president was anything than honorable is, in fact, just a greedy arrogant politician like so many others. As I said before, time to storm the Bastille and throw them out, the whole sorry lot of them or we can always sell the country to the UAE. They would probably do a better job of running it than this poor excuse for an administration. As Isabel from Florida said on Lou Dobbs the other day, I could run this country better from my kitchen table. I believe her.
that is a long
string of words that is so illogical I just slap my rump and shout hallelujah. Not much more can be done other than that.
so as long as you don;t have to
pay for other people's children . . . you're okay with teenagers raising babies.
I come from a long
line of Twaddles, and we are a prominent family in our community.
Wow - how long did it take you to think of that one?
You should be one of Obama's political advisors. You know, you bein' so SMART an' all.
And your message was posted by: "?"
Does that stand for clueless or just 'can't spell my own name?'
I love Obama supporters. They're like children. Or really, really slow-learning monkeys. :)
Oh yes....and how long
did people scream and shout about how we were losing the surge in Iraq while we were successful? Obama didn't even want to admit we were successful when there was no way to dispute the fact. Just once, I would like to see you post something that isn't totally one-sided liberal, kool-aid drinking BS.
I think as long as there is anything
other than Islam, they will always perceive a threat to Islam. The threat is our very existence. Whether radical Muslims kill others outright - or breed, recruit/convert and infiltrate us out of existence, we are not to be tolerated as we are. They are not content to live side-by-side and allow everyone to worship whatever god (or no god) we wish in whatever way we please. The American ideal off Christians, Jews, Muslims and other religious living as neighbors along the same street is horrifying to these people. There is only one right choice!
They do not wish a settlement of the Palestinian issue, because this is the catalyst to stir up old conflicts when things seem to be settling down. I do not believe you can achieve peace through any amount of niceness and talking, or anything other than victory - and neither do they.
The best we can hope for is a temporary detente from time to time. This is not to be perceived as the end of the show, but intermission while they think of some other way to achieve their goals, (as we should be.) But instead, we get a Palestiniann and an Israeli to shake hands at Camp David, then start singing Ding-Dong The Witch is Dead. I have to wonder if it naivete or arrogance on our part.
That's just how it is and how it has been for a long time.
Doesn't seem to be anything we can do about it. As someone has said, it's a privately owned board and the political alliance appears to be very right-wing evangelical Christian. The Religion board used to be even worse than the Politics board until it got renamed Christian (now at least it's named for what it really is). I don't even look at that board anymore.
How long a truce?
Okay, lets see how long your ************ truce********* lasts, LOLOL..Humor me..Lets read your posts under a ********truce******..Wanna bet how long they will last from you one of the Queens of Judgment?? Can I call your arse to task when you step off your ******* truce*******..You bet I will..So, honey, keep posting good posts, debate posts and you will be **in**, jump off that and your arse is fried..
I haven't been here that long but
long enough to see clearly how immaturely they operate. PHEW!
Freepers have been around for a long while...
And I'm sorry but I have to disagree with you about the posts on FreeRepublic. I have the site bookmarked and I look at it pretty often. It's true that you can find liberals ranting on their own sites and some of that gets pretty hateful and scary sometimes too - but I can understand why. They've been threatened once too often and they're just not going to take it anymore.
Freepers don't have that excuse. Many of them are hateful and aggressive as a way of life and love spreading it around. What is their excuse for threatening the lives of liberals as often as they do? - a liberal might give them HEALTH CARE? Yeah I guess that's a killing offense.
But anyway if you haven't noticed any threatening posts by Freepers, obviously, you're not looking for them - and that must be a full-time job. Either that or you agree with the worst of them, in which case what's not to like?
Kudos to the Freepers for raising money for Katrina - puts them on par with the many liberal and bipartisan groups doing the same. It should be a group effort.
Now if they'd stop supporting torture, religious discrimination and intrusive anti-Constitutional government policies as well, maybe they'd lose their dumb-butt reputations.
This has been around a long time. sm
How and why someone would assemble WTC and the flight victims this way is beyond me. Oh well, to each his own, but I am thinking SOMEONE has a little too much time on their hands!
I don't think you can equate the two. (Long - sorry)
A tubal pregnancy is a medical emergency endangering the lives of both mother and embryo. Unfortunately, modern medicine does not yet provide any capacity to salvage the embryo, but the mother can be saved by removal of the blocked tube or removal of the embryo from the tube.
I've read articles describing nontubal ectopic intraabdominal pregnancies in which the embryo was able to implant near a blood-rich source such as the liver; in this rare instance, the fetus could be maintained long enough for successful delivery via laparotomy. If that were the case, I would certainly try to maintain the pregnancy for as long as possible to allow the fetus to reach viability. Interesting article here about an abdominal pregnancy not diagnosed until 38 weeks gestation - http://www.findarticles.com/p/articles/mi_m3225/is_n1_v41/ai_8773331.
Just as a side note, the Catholic Church, which is officially staunchly anti-abortion despite the behavior of some of its members, makes an interesting distinction in terms of tubal pregnancies. It is considered morally licit - okay - to treat a tubal pregnancy with salpingectomy because the death of the embryo is considered an unfortunate side-effect but not the intent of the intervention, which is to remove the blocked section of tube to prevent rupture. The use of methotrexate to induce passage of the embryo, however, is considered illicit because this is considered to imply a direct intent to kill/abort the embryo. I've never been able to see a moral difference between the two, as the fetus cannot survive and either option saves the mother. Does anyone here believe one is more morally correct than the other?
probably won't be silent for long....nm
nm
In the long run it has everything to do with peace
As it disrupts the global economy and the ability of this planet to feed its population it will have very much to do with peace. Power struggles, especially over oil/food/usable land = wars, historically.
This is long, but when you have time...
read this with an open mind. Do not think about what any media person or pundit or anyone else has said about anything to do with the campaign. I will not even share what I think. In fact, do not think about the person who said them, just think about the message.
*****
PHILADELPHIA - "We the people, in order to form a more perfect union."
Two hundred and twenty one years ago, in a hall that still stands across the street, a group of men gathered and, with these simple words, launched America's improbable experiment in democracy. Farmers and scholars; statesmen and patriots who had traveled across an ocean to escape tyranny and persecution finally made real their declaration of independence at a Philadelphia convention that lasted through the spring of 1787.
The document they produced was eventually signed but ultimately unfinished. It was stained by this nation's original sin of slavery, a question that divided the colonies and brought the convention to a stalemate until the founders chose to allow the slave trade to continue for at least twenty more years, and to leave any final resolution to future generations.
Of course, the answer to the slavery question was already embedded within our Constitution - a Constitution that had at is very core the ideal of equal citizenship under the law; a Constitution that promised its people liberty, and justice, and a union that could be and should be perfected over time.
And yet words on a parchment would not be enough to deliver slaves from bondage, or provide men and women of every color and creed their full rights and obligations as citizens of the United States. What would be needed were Americans in successive generations who were willing to do their part - through protests and struggle, on the streets and in the courts, through a civil war and civil disobedience and always at great risk - to narrow that gap between the promise of our ideals and the reality of their time.
This was one of the tasks we set forth at the beginning of this campaign - to continue the long march of those who came before us, a march for a more just, more equal, more free, more caring and more prosperous America. 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 of children and our grandchildren.
This belief comes from my unyielding faith in the decency and generosity of the American people. But it also comes from my own American story.
I am the son of a black man from Kenya and a white woman from Kansas. I was raised with the help of a white grandfather who survived a Depression to serve in Patton's Army during World War II and a white grandmother who worked on a bomber assembly line at Fort Leavenworth while he was overseas. I've gone to some of the best schools in America and lived in one of the world's poorest nations. I am married to a black American who carries within her the blood of slaves and slaveowners - an inheritance we pass on to our two precious daughters. I have brothers, sisters, nieces, nephews, uncles and cousins, of every race and every hue, scattered across three continents, and for as long as I live, I will never forget that in no other country on Earth is my story even possible.
It's a story that hasn't made me the most conventional candidate. But it is a story that has seared into my genetic makeup the idea that this nation is more than the sum of its parts - that out of many, we are truly one.
Throughout the first year of this campaign, against all predictions to the contrary, we saw how hungry the American people were for this message of unity. Despite the temptation to view my candidacy through a purely racial lens, we won commanding victories in states with some of the whitest populations in the country. In South Carolina, where the Confederate Flag still flies, we built a powerful coalition of African Americans and white Americans.
This is not to say that race has not been an issue in the campaign. At various stages in the campaign, some commentators have deemed me either "too black" or "not black enough." We saw racial tensions bubble to the surface during the week before the South Carolina primary. The press has scoured every exit poll for the latest evidence of racial polarization, not just in terms of white and black, but black and brown as well.
And yet, it has only been in the last couple of weeks that the discussion of race in this campaign has taken a particularly divisive turn.
On one end of the spectrum, we've heard the implication that my candidacy is somehow an exercise in affirmative action; that it's based solely on the desire of wide-eyed liberals to purchase racial reconciliation on the cheap. On the other end, we've heard my former pastor, Reverend Jeremiah Wright, use incendiary language to express views that have the potential not only to widen the racial divide, but views that denigrate both the greatness and the goodness of our nation; that rightly offend white and black alike.
I have already condemned, in unequivocal terms, the statements of Reverend Wright that have caused such controversy. For some, nagging questions remain. Did I know him to be an occasionally fierce critic of American domestic and foreign policy? Of course. Did I ever hear him make remarks that could be considered controversial while I sat in church? Yes. Did I strongly disagree with many of his political views? Absolutely - just as I'm sure many of you have heard remarks from your pastors, priests, or rabbis with which you strongly disagreed.
But the remarks that have caused this recent firestorm weren't simply controversial. They weren't simply a religious leader's effort to speak out against perceived injustice. Instead, they expressed a profoundly distorted view of this country - a view that sees white racism as endemic, and that elevates what is wrong with America above all that we know is right with America; a view that sees the conflicts in the Middle East as rooted primarily in the actions of stalwart allies like Israel, instead of emanating from the perverse and hateful ideologies of radical Islam.
As such, Reverend Wright's comments were not only wrong but divisive, divisive at a time when we need unity; racially charged at a time when we need to come together to solve a set of monumental problems - two wars, a terrorist threat, a falling economy, a chronic health care crisis and potentially devastating climate change; problems that are neither black or white or Latino or Asian, but rather problems that confront us all.
Given my background, my politics, and my professed values and ideals, there will no doubt be those for whom my statements of condemnation are not enough. Why associate myself with Reverend Wright in the first place, they may ask? Why not join another church? And I confess that if all that I knew of Reverend Wright were the snippets of those sermons that have run in an endless loop on the television and You Tube, or if Trinity United Church of Christ conformed to the caricatures being peddled by some commentators, there is no doubt that I would react in much the same way
But the truth is, that isn't all that I know of the man. The man I met more than twenty years ago is a man who helped introduce me to my Christian faith, a man who spoke to me about our obligations to love one another; to care for the sick and lift up the poor. He is a man who served his country as a U.S. Marine; who has studied and lectured at some of the finest universities and seminaries in the country, and who for over thirty years led a church that serves the community by doing God's work here on Earth - by housing the homeless, ministering to the needy, providing day care services and scholarships and prison ministries, and reaching out to those suffering from HIV/AIDS.
In my first book, Dreams From My Father, I described the experience of my first service at Trinity:
"People began to shout, to rise from their seats and clap and cry out, a forceful wind carrying the reverend's voice up into the rafters….And in that single note - hope! - I heard something else; at the foot of that cross, inside the thousands of churches across the city, I imagined the stories of ordinary black people merging with the stories of David and Goliath, Moses and Pharaoh, the Christians in the lion's den, Ezekiel's field of dry bones. Those stories - of survival, and freedom, and hope - became our story, my story; the blood that had spilled was our blood, the tears our tears; until this black church, on this bright day, seemed once more a vessel carrying the story of a people into future generations and into a larger world. Our trials and triumphs became at once unique and universal, black and more than black; in chronicling our journey, the stories and songs gave us a means to reclaim memories that we didn't need to feel shame about…memories that all people might study and cherish - and with which we could start to rebuild."
That has been my experience at Trinity. Like other predominantly black churches across the country, Trinity embodies the black community in its entirety - the doctor and the welfare mom, the model student and the former gang-banger. Like other black churches, Trinity's services are full of raucous laughter and sometimes bawdy humor. They are full of dancing, clapping, screaming and shouting that may seem jarring to the untrained ear. The church contains in full the kindness and cruelty, the fierce intelligence and the shocking ignorance, the struggles and successes, the love and yes, the bitterness and bias that make up the black experience in America.
And this helps explain, perhaps, my relationship with Reverend Wright. As imperfect as he may be, he has been like family to me. He strengthened my faith, officiated my wedding, and baptized my children. Not once in my conversations with him have I heard him talk about any ethnic group in derogatory terms, or treat whites with whom he interacted with anything but courtesy and respect. He contains within him the contradictions - the good and the bad - of the community that he has served diligently for so many years.
I can no more disown him than I can disown the black community. I can no more disown him than I can my white grandmother - a woman who helped raise me, a woman who sacrificed again and again for me, a woman who loves me as much as she loves anything in this world, but a woman who once confessed her fear of black men who passed by her on the street, and who on more than one occasion has uttered racial or ethnic stereotypes that made me cringe.
These people are a part of me. And they are a part of America, this country that I love.
Some will see this as an attempt to justify or excuse comments that are simply inexcusable. I can assure you it is not. I suppose the politically safe thing would be to move on from this episode and just hope that it fades into the woodwork. We can dismiss Reverend Wright as a crank or a demagogue, just as some have dismissed Geraldine Ferraro, in the aftermath of her recent statements, as harboring some deep-seated racial bias.
But race is an issue that I believe this nation cannot afford to ignore right now. We would be making the same mistake that Reverend Wright made in his offending sermons about America - to simplify and stereotype and amplify the negative to the point that it distorts reality.
The fact is that the comments that have been made and the issues that have surfaced over the last few weeks reflect the complexities of race in this country that we've never really worked through - a part of our union that we have yet to perfect. And if we walk away now, if we simply retreat into our respective corners, we will never be able to come together and solve challenges like health care, or education, or the need to find good jobs for every American.
Understanding this reality requires a reminder of how we arrived at this point. As William Faulkner once wrote, "The past isn't dead and buried. In fact, it isn't even past." We do not need to recite here the history of racial injustice in this country. But we do need to remind ourselves that so many of the disparities that exist in the African-American community today can be directly traced to inequalities passed on from an earlier generation that suffered under the brutal legacy of slavery and Jim Crow.
Segregated schools were, and are, inferior schools; we still haven't fixed them, fifty years after Brown v. Board of Education, and the inferior education they provided, then and now, helps explain the pervasive achievement gap between today's black and white students.
Legalized discrimination - where blacks were prevented, often through violence, from owning property, or loans were not granted to African-American business owners, or black homeowners could not access FHA mortgages, or blacks were excluded from unions, or the police force, or fire departments - meant that black families could not amass any meaningful wealth to bequeath to future generations. That history helps explain the wealth and income gap between black and white, and the concentrated pockets of poverty that persists in so many of today's urban and rural communities.
A lack of economic opportunity among black men, and the shame and frustration that came from not being able to provide for one's family, contributed to the erosion of black families - a problem that welfare policies for many years may have worsened. And the lack of basic services in so many urban black neighborhoods - parks for kids to play in, police walking the beat, regular garbage pick-up and building code enforcement - all helped create a cycle of violence, blight and neglect that continue to haunt us.
This is the reality in which Reverend Wright and other African-Americans of his generation grew up. They came of age in the late fifties and early sixties, a time when segregation was still the law of the land and opportunity was systematically constricted. What's remarkable is not how many failed in the face of discrimination, but rather how many men and women overcame the odds; how many were able to make a way out of no way for those like me who would come after them.
But for all those who scratched and clawed their way to get a piece of the American Dream, there were many who didn't make it - those who were ultimately defeated, in one way or another, by discrimination. That legacy of defeat was passed on to future generations - those young men and increasingly young women who we see standing on street corners or languishing in our prisons, without hope or prospects for the future. Even for those blacks who did make it, questions of race, and racism, continue to define their worldview in fundamental ways. For the men and women of Reverend Wright's generation, the memories of humiliation and doubt and fear have not gone away; nor has the anger and the bitterness of those years. That anger may not get expressed in public, in front of white co-workers or white friends. But it does find voice in the barbershop or around the kitchen table. At times, that anger is exploited by politicians, to gin up votes along racial lines, or to make up for a politician's own failings.
And occasionally it finds voice in the church on Sunday morning, in the pulpit and in the pews. The fact that so many people are surprised to hear that anger in some of Reverend Wright's sermons simply reminds us of the old truism that the most segregated hour in American life occurs on Sunday morning. That anger is not always productive; indeed, all too often it distracts attention from solving real problems; it keeps us from squarely facing our own complicity in our condition, and prevents the African-American community from forging the alliances it needs to bring about real change. But the anger is real; it is powerful; and to simply wish it away, to condemn it without understanding its roots, only serves to widen the chasm of misunderstanding that exists between the races.
In fact, a similar anger exists within segments of the white community. Most working- and middle-class white Americans don't feel that they have been particularly privileged by their race. Their experience is the immigrant experience - as far as they're concerned, no one's handed them anything, they've built it from scratch. They've worked hard all their lives, many times only to see their jobs shipped overseas or their pension dumped after a lifetime of labor. They are anxious about their futures, and feel their dreams slipping away; in an era of stagnant wages and global competition, opportunity comes to be seen as a zero sum game, in which your dreams come at my expense. So when they are told to bus their children to a school across town; when they hear that an African American is getting an advantage in landing a good job or a spot in a good college because of an injustice that they themselves never committed; when they're told that their fears about crime in urban neighborhoods are somehow prejudiced, resentment builds over time.
Like the anger within the black community, these resentments aren't always expressed in polite company. But they have helped shape the political landscape for at least a generation. Anger over welfare and affirmative action helped forge the Reagan Coalition. Politicians routinely exploited fears of crime for their own electoral ends. Talk show hosts and conservative commentators built entire careers unmasking bogus claims of racism while dismissing legitimate discussions of racial injustice and inequality as mere political correctness or reverse racism.
Just as black anger often proved counterproductive, so have these white resentments distracted attention from the real culprits of the middle class squeeze - a corporate culture rife with inside dealing, questionable accounting practices, and short-term greed; a Washington dominated by lobbyists and special interests; economic policies that favor the few over the many. And yet, to wish away the resentments of white Americans, to label them as misguided or even racist, without recognizing they are grounded in legitimate concerns - this too widens the racial divide, and blocks the path to understanding.
This is where we are right now. It's a racial stalemate we've been stuck in for years. Contrary to the claims of some of my critics, black and white, I have never been so naïve as to believe that we can get beyond our racial divisions in a single election cycle, or with a single candidacy - particularly a candidacy as imperfect as my own.
But I have asserted a firm conviction - a conviction rooted in my faith in God and my faith in the American people - that working together we can move beyond some of our old racial wounds, and that in fact we have no choice is we are to continue on the path of a more perfect union.
For the African-American community, that path means embracing the burdens of our past without becoming victims of our past. It means continuing to insist on a full measure of justice in every aspect of American life. But it also means binding our particular grievances - for better health care, and better schools, and better jobs - to the larger aspirations of all Americans -- the white woman struggling to break the glass ceiling, the white man whose been laid off, the immigrant trying to feed his family. And it means taking full responsibility for own lives - by demanding more from our fathers, and spending more time with our children, and reading to them, and teaching them that while they may face challenges and discrimination in their own lives, they must never succumb to despair or cynicism; they must always believe that they can write their own destiny.
Ironically, this quintessentially American - and yes, conservative - notion of self-help found frequent expression in Reverend Wright's sermons. But what my former pastor too often failed to understand is that embarking on a program of self-help also requires a belief that society can change.
The profound mistake of Reverend Wright's sermons is not that he spoke about racism in our society. It's that he spoke as if our society was static; as if no progress has been made; as if this country - a country that has made it possible for one of his own members to run for the highest office in the land and build a coalition of white and black; Latino and Asian, rich and poor, young and old -- is still irrevocably bound to a tragic past. But what we know -- what we have seen - is that America can change. That is true genius of this nation. What we have already achieved gives us hope - the audacity to hope - for what we can and must achieve tomorrow.
In the white community, the path to a more perfect union means acknowledging that what ails the African-American community does not just exist in the minds of black people; that the legacy of discrimination - and current incidents of discrimination, while less overt than in the past - are real and must be addressed. Not just with words, but with deeds - by investing in our schools and our communities; by enforcing our civil rights laws and ensuring fairness in our criminal justice system; by providing this generation with ladders of opportunity that were unavailable for previous generations. It requires all Americans to realize that your dreams do not have to come at the expense of my dreams; that investing in the health, welfare, and education of black and brown and white children will ultimately help all of America prosper.
In the end, then, what is called for is nothing more, and nothing less, than what all the world's great religions demand - that we do unto others as we would have them do unto us. Let us be our brother's keeper, Scripture tells us. Let us be our sister's keeper. Let us find that common stake we all have in one another, and let our politics reflect that spirit as well.
For we have a choice in this country. We can accept a politics that breeds division, and conflict, and cynicism. We can tackle race only as spectacle - as we did in the OJ trial - or in the wake of tragedy, as we did in the aftermath of Katrina - or as fodder for the nightly news. We can play Reverend Wright's sermons on every channel, every day and talk about them from now until the election, and make the only question in this campaign whether or not the American people think that I somehow believe or sympathize with his most offensive words. We can pounce on some gaffe by a Hillary supporter as evidence that she's playing the race card, or we can speculate on whether white men will all flock to John McCain in the general election regardless of his policies.
We can do that.
But if we do, I can tell you that in the next election, we'll be talking about some other distraction. And then another one. And then another one. And nothing will change.
That is one option. Or, at this moment, in this election, we can come together and say, "Not this time." This time we want to talk about the crumbling schools that are stealing the future of black children and white children and Asian children and Hispanic children and Native American children. This time we want to reject the cynicism that tells us that these kids can't learn; that those kids who don't look like us are somebody else's problem. The children of America are not those kids, they are our kids, and we will not let them fall behind in a 21st century economy. Not this time.
This time we want to talk about how the lines in the Emergency Room are filled with whites and blacks and Hispanics who do not have health care; who don't have the power on their own to overcome the special interests in Washington, but who can take them on if we do it together.
This time we want to talk about the shuttered mills that once provided a decent life for men and women of every race, and the homes for sale that once belonged to Americans from every religion, every region, every walk of life. This time we want to talk about the fact that the real problem is not that someone who doesn't look like you might take your job; it's that the corporation you work for will ship it overseas for nothing more than a profit.
This time we want to talk about the men and women of every color and creed who serve together, and fight together, and bleed together under the same proud flag. We want to talk about how to bring them home from a war that never should've been authorized and never should've been waged, and we want to talk about how we'll show our patriotism by caring for them, and their families, and giving them the benefits they have earned.
I would not be running for President if I didn't believe with all my heart that this is what the vast majority of Americans want for this country. This union may never be perfect, but generation after generation has shown that it can always be perfected. And today, whenever I find myself feeling doubtful or cynical about this possibility, what gives me the most hope is the next generation - the young people whose attitudes and beliefs and openness to change have already made history in this election.
There is one story in particularly that I'd like to leave you with today - a story I told when I had the great honor of speaking on Dr. King's birthday at his home church, Ebenezer Baptist, in Atlanta.
There is a young, twenty-three year old white woman named Ashley Baia who organized for our campaign in Florence, South Carolina. She had been working to organize a mostly African-American community since the beginning of this campaign, and one day she was at a roundtable discussion where everyone went around telling their story and why they were there.
And Ashley said that when she was nine years old, her mother got cancer. And because she had to miss days of work, she was let go and lost her health care. They had to file for bankruptcy, and that's when Ashley decided that she had to do something to help her mom.
She knew that food was one of their most expensive costs, and so Ashley convinced her mother that what she really liked and really wanted to eat more than anything else was mustard and relish sandwiches. Because that was the cheapest way to eat.
She did this for a year until her mom got better, and she told everyone at the roundtable that the reason she joined our campaign was so that she could help the millions of other children in the country who want and need to help their parents too.
Now Ashley might have made a different choice. Perhaps somebody told her along the way that the source of her mother's problems were blacks who were on welfare and too lazy to work, or Hispanics who were coming into the country illegally. But she didn't. She sought out allies in her fight against injustice.
Anyway, Ashley finishes her story and then goes around the room and asks everyone else why they're supporting the campaign. They all have different stories and reasons. Many bring up a specific issue. And finally they come to this elderly black man who's been sitting there quietly the entire time. And Ashley asks him why he's there. And he does not bring up a specific issue. He does not say health care or the economy. He does not say education or the war. He does not say that he was there because of Barack Obama. He simply says to everyone in the room, "I am here because of Ashley."
"I'm here because of Ashley." By itself, that single moment of recognition between that young white girl and that old black man is not enough. It is not enough to give health care to the sick, or jobs to the jobless, or education to our children.
But it is where we start. It is where our union grows stronger. And as so many generations have come to realize over the course of the two-hundred and twenty one years since a band of patriots signed that document in Philadelphia, that is where the perfection begins.
-Barack Obama
March 18, 2008
It's been out there for a long time
The LA Times (just one of the papers) told its bloggers to not touch this story. The rest of the media did the same. The Enquirer talked about this last November. As things come out in just this one story, everyone reading this should question their news providers. No need to argue with me. Just let it play out if you don't believe me. Better yet, venture out on your own and find your own answers before flaming away. I give no one a free pass in the news biz.
You're right, I was 16 once and not that long ago...
And I did have rumors spread about me in a similar fashion. I had to have ultrasounds, was wearing baggier clothes and that is the first thing that was said was that I was pregnant. I didn't give one fig what was said because I knew the truth. All of my friends and family knew the truth. It was the people who were saying such things that looked bad when month after month went by and I had no baby.
|
