President Obama spoke out strongly against the tragedy that took place at Fort Hood, Texas and expressed sympathy for the victims and families of the victims of this violent and terrible crime that has shaken our nation at its core. But, as I read an opinion piece posted through the Fox News Web site, I quickly realized that political opportunists who are haters of the president will let no opportunity to attack the president pass unexploited.
Dan Gainor, who is the Boone Pickens Fellow and the Media Research Center’s Vice President for Business and Culture, also is a contributor to Fox News with regard to opinion pieces. It is crystal clear, however, that his latest entry to the Fox News right-wing effort is a desperate attempt to exploit the Fort Hood tragedy as an opportunity to attack President Obama utilizing the weakest and most flimsy of material imaginable.
The headline reads, “Obama on Ft. Hood — Not Even ‘Shocked’” to get things started. Then, the sub headline reads, ”While President Obama called the murders at Ft. Hood ”horrible” and a “tragedy” and urged “prayers,” the response seemed understated compared to the other incidents.” So, it is not enough that he called the murders at Fort Hood “horrible” and a “tragedy” as far as some right-wing nuts are concerned. Because he did not specifically use the word “shocked” it seems he now is again being attacked.
Here is how hater Dan gets started:
How a president responds to a crisis defines him. President Obama has shown how upset he was after the murder of abortion Dr. George Tiller and after the attack on the Holocaust Museum. But when it came to the Ft. Hood shootings, the president twice gave the incident a limited response …devoting little more than 4 minutes over two separate appearances to the 13 dead and 30 wounded.
In the Tiller case, the president was “shocked and outraged by the murder of Dr. George Tiller as he attended church services this morning.” In the case of the museum attack, Obama was “shocked and saddened by today’s shooting at the U.S. Holocaust Memorial Museum.”
But when it came to the horrendous Ft. Hood shootings, the term “shocked” was nowhere to be found. Instead, the initial response was shoehorned into comments he made opening the White House Tribal Nations Conference. First there were a couple applause lines to Native Americans and Obama’s “shout out to that Congressional Medal of Honor winner,” who appears not to have won the medal. (Joe Medicine Crow won the Medal of Freedom — the nation’s highest civilian honor.)
What is striking about Gainor’s comment is he (in true right wing form) comes back to one of their key issues (taking away the reproductive freedom of women … abortion). It shows the obsession on the part of many conservatives with the issue of abortion and how upset a large number of right wingers were that the president and others were outraged by the murder of Dr. George Tiller.
Gainor is actually counting the minutes devoting to the president’s responses to different tragedies. That is just weak, silly and insulting to the victims of all the aforementioned crimes to use it as a tool to launch a politically-motivated attack.
If President Obama had held a press conference to express his feelings he probably would have been accused of exploiting the tragedy to put himself in the spotlight.
Actually, Gainor goes on to attack President Obama anyway for putting himself into the spotlight.
Then the president addressed the shooting. While he called the incident “horrible” and a “tragedy” and urged “prayers,” the response seemed understated compared to the other incidents. Then, in true Obama fashion, he did manage to make the shootings at least in part about him. “I want all of you to know that as commander in chief, that there’s no greater honor but also no greater responsibility for me than to make sure that the extraordinary men and women in uniform are properly cared for and that their safety and security when they are at home is provided for us.”
To some, that statement is taking responsibility, but two a right-wing political bigot it is about putting yourself in the spotlight. The writer ignores the positive as President Obama salutes the brave men and women who fight for our country and instead chooses to politicize the statement to portray the president in a negative light. Many conservatives have attacked President Obama for not saluting the troops enough, but when he does many of these same conservatives essentially accusing him of grandstanding.
How pathetic can it get from Gainor?
He busts out the stopwatch again.
Two minutes and 39 seconds later he was done and without even taking a breath back to talking about the Native American event. Nowhere in his speech or his remarks the next day did he even acknowledge that the attacker was a Muslim. In his statement after the museum attack, he correctly criticized “anti-Semitism and prejudice” but made no mention of religion in the latest incident.
The Nov. 6 appearance took up just 1 minute 30 seconds and this time it was paired with his remarks on the bad unemployment numbers. In all, he spent 4 minutes 9 seconds to address the attack on 43 Americans …less than 6 seconds per person.
This is beyond childish.
Then, notice the bigotry reveals itself again as Gainor bashes the president for not acknowledging that the accused attacker in the Fort Hood massacre was a Muslim.
Sandy Gholston
