Tuesday, September 8, 2009

Don't Stay in School!!!

I recently discovered that my obsession with all things MSNBC is pretty typical of grad students (there goes my attempt at being original). I used to be addicted to Democracy Now, but dude started getting on my nerves during the election. I basically felt that he, like many Latinos, had selective amnesia when it came to all that good that the Clintons have done. I mean, NAFTA is the greatest thing ever for Latin America. It even led to CAFTA-DR! Thanks guys! And then after the election, the constant Obama criticism. Don't get me wrong, Obama isn't perfect to me either: I think he should out of Iraq AND Afghanistan, for example. But I also recognize that the president has to have some savvy when it comes his job. He can't be super liberal, living in the trees for over a year, and trying to make decisions. Sorry can't happen.

But I do believe, like Bill Maher, that Obama needs to grow a set. The most recent controversy about his speech for school children is the perfect example. Conservatives are like five year olds, complaining just to complain, especially when the complaint is absolutely ridiculous: I don't want my kids listening to the president. To me, that was pure disrespect on a racist tip. But the hottest part came when they asked to read the speech beforehand. I mean, can you guess how this country might be different if we demanded to see Bush's speeches beforehand? We would have saved ourselves a whole lot of embarrassment, for one. We wouldn't have to fake accents when we are abroad. Think about how nice that would have been.

So if that wasn't the worst part, the Obama Administration actually released a copy. Fuck that. No other president has been asked to do that. None other. And these guys want to play all nice and actually do what these folks say!! I'm just floored. They demand that the president show them a copy of a speech and he does it, like a child. He's the president. Get over it.

On television, there were all these school-children discussing the speech. Much of them, like me, were wondering what the big deal was. I can make a guess: The president is Black and a nice chunk of the people believe that he couldn't be qualified or trusted. Perhaps he cheated his way through Harvard. Maybe he was just so charismatic that Harvard Law Review fell for it, but not you, conservative Southern Republican. He might be the president, but he's still Black and needs to be checked, apparently. And young people, who are all naive and trusting, may fall for it without the protection of conservative parents.

They asked for his birth certificate. He gave it to them when he didn't have to. A poll came out saying that a majority of the people who still don't believe Obama was born in the U.S. are either unsure or positively sure that Hawaii is not a state. Why are we responding to these folks? No wonder they took exception to a speech about staying in school.

It just makes me sad that they've run out of things to be mad out--they really ran out of things a long time ago--but they are still trying, to the country's detriment. Player has work to do, let him do it. And Obama, quit responding to these fools. Now if we can get Michelle to quit showing her arms in public!!