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Why the Border Bigots Are Beating Obama (Yes, that's the actual headline)
The Daily Beast ^ | July 9, 2014 | Michael Tomasky

Posted on 07/09/2014 3:27:51 PM PDT by 2ndDivisionVet

Yes, Rick Perry is awful for not shaking his hand, but the president needs a Pope Francis-like moment with the border kids to signal America is more than blowhards and racists.

Let’s get Rick Perry’s jackass-ery out of the way quickly: Refusing to shake hands in public with the president of the United States is just an idiot thing to do. Perry is trying to claim the faux moral high ground here by arguing that he held out for a more substantive meeting and got it, but come on. It’s not as if that meeting wouldn’t have happened if the governor had shown up on the runway. What exactly does Obama get out of a public handshake with a hard-right, not that bright, confusingly optometrized Texas Republican?

This might be a paragraph you can wave in my face on January 21, 2017, and God knows I’ve written a number of them, but: Rick Perry ain’t never gonna be president. We’ve been watching him on the national stage for a while now. Forget the third thing he forgot. The problem is that his instincts are wrong, his timing is bad, his hand is heavy. Accusing the White House of orchestrating a “coordinated effort” to help the movement of tens of thousands of children? That’s just Tea Party nonsense. He’s a guitarist who never knows what notes not to play. Now, guitarists like that have fans, sometimes millions of them. But they don’t ascend the plinth of greatness. He just has “governor but nothing more” written on his face.

Now let’s turn to the guy who did ascend the plinth, at least in terms of becoming president. What is he doing on this issue of the immigrant children? They were asking on Hardball Tuesday night whether this might be Obama’s Katrina. We’ve had a string of little crises that were all supposed to be Obama’s Katrina, and they’ve mostly been jokes. Slate’s Dave Weigel counted up nine of ’em. It’s been silly. But somehow, this one didn’t ring so false to me when Matthews et al were discussing it Tuesday night.

For one thing, there is the specific parallel of the flyover: Obama was going to Texas for a fundraiser but wasn’t planning on going to the border? I usually try to ask myself what I’d be saying if a Republican did X, and if a Republican did that, I’d be teeing off. It’s not defensible.

Second, Obama is at a really vulnerable point in his presidency, I think, not dissimilar to the point George W. Bush was at in August 2005, when Katrina hit. Then, Bush’s approval rating was generally in the mid-40s, as Obama’s is now. Hanging on, but vulnerable to one straw that could break the camel’s back. Obama is in that place now. And this is pretty far afield, but keep an eye on Aleppo in Syria. Aleppo has been a stronghold of the more legitimate opposition to Bashar al-Assad. It might be about to fall to Assad’s forces. This, two weeks after Obama announced a big aid package for the moderate rebels. Syria is Obama’s biggest foreign policy failure—he should have delivered that $500 million to those forces long ago, but he delayed. When Assad’s recapture of Aleppo is consummated, Obama is going to look played again.

That delaying is a pattern. I don’t understand it. I covered New York mayors. When a crisis hits, you go. If it’s 3 in the {expletive} morning and way out in some part of Staten Island you’ve never even heard of, you go. Obama should have been in Texas or California or Arizona last week.

But saying what? That’s the problem. If we lived in a better country, we’d take these kids in. It’s obscene that we don’t. Used by jackals, no life to go back to at all. Yes, I guess we can’t encourage 200,000 or 300,000 to come. But we could at least be housing them in circumstances better than 20 of them sharing one toilet. It’s disgusting and makes me ashamed, and it should you.

But Obama is the last person in America who can say that. He’d be pilloried. Maybe impeached (reason, what, five, to the right?). And that tells us what’s really tragic about this crisis. We have a political system that not only can’t solve this particular crisis, it is virtually guaranteed never to solve it. That’s almost all the Republicans’ fault. Anything that embarrasses Obama they’re going to play up, of course, but it’s also the raging xenophobia of their base.

Still, this is the kind of situation where the people who voted for Obama want him to do...something. They understand the political constraints. They know he can’t do a lot. But a Pope Francis-esque gesture of some kind: As the pope washed the feet of women, would it be too much for Obama to go to one of these horrid shelters and read these children a story? Kick a soccer ball with them? Would that really kill him in the polls? Most liberals aren’t unrealistic, contrary to what you normally read. But they want to see little manifestations of courage from the man they voted for. This is a prime moment for exactly that.

I think the White House in these circumstances underestimates the American people. The American people, thank God, aren’t right-wing bigots and blowhards. They’re actually pretty decent. You just have to find that yin of decency and locate the gestures and words that smother the yang of fear. It can be done. The media poke fun at “hope,” but what hope meant was that many Americans just wanted Obama to be able to do that—to say to the world, “We are this generous people, not that fearful people.” It didn’t, and still doesn’t, seem too much to ask.


TOPICS: Crime/Corruption; Foreign Affairs; Government; Politics/Elections
KEYWORDS: aliens; amnesty; dreamers; immigration; obama
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To: 2ndDivisionVet
 photo scabies-victims_thumb_zpsde7ae36e.png

Keep posting pics like this on every lefty site.

Let the pictures of the disease sink in, then ask, would you want your child, who attends a public school, to be exposed to this?

21 posted on 07/09/2014 4:10:45 PM PDT by dragonblustar ( Psalm 103, Psalm 37:7, Ephesians 6:12)
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To: 2ndDivisionVet
You just have to find that yin of decency and locate the gestures and words that smother the yang of fear. It can be done.

I'm sure he could start with "what's a little case of lice between neighbors?" or maybe "who hasn't had antibiotic resistant TB? No worries!" or how about "scabies, the new yuppy disease, it's what all the cool kids get." I know I'd feel a lot better. /s

22 posted on 07/09/2014 4:14:53 PM PDT by Hoffer Rand (Bear His image. Bring His message. Be the Church.)
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To: 2ndDivisionVet
Perry's “not that bright”?.... Really? After you leftists stuck us with a weapons grade pig-idiot like Obama?
23 posted on 07/09/2014 4:16:47 PM PDT by Bullish (You ever notice that liberalism really just amounts to anti-morality?)
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To: 2ndDivisionVet
Comments?... I have many.
To the author (Michael Tomasky), take ten into your home and feed, raise, care for, them yourself. While you are at it take in ten AMERICAN children too. For the plight you want to put on AMERICAN citizens ignores AMERICAN CITIZENS!!! We have thrown $Billions and $Billions at welfare with almost non change.
So you want to shame me for not wanting to add ILLIGAL ALIEN CHILDREN to my burden? I say to you, where is YOUR contribution to our Country and the existing need herein?
This is a putz article trying to shame me for not wanting an ORCHESTRATED INVASION to succeed?
The shame does NOT lie on the American people. THE SHAME LIES ON THE INVADERS NATION OF ORGION!!! SHAME on this Administration for USING Alien children to PERPETUATE this malfeasance.
I say: Shame on you President Obama.
I say: Shame on the parents of these children
I say: Shame on the Governments of origin, and our elected representatives who allow the PROSTITUTION of these children.
And lastly to the MSM who wants to shame me for not wanting the PROSTITUTION of the children to be accepted, I say FU MSM, YOU are just as culpable as the people orchestrating this travesty.
24 posted on 07/09/2014 4:22:21 PM PDT by ssschev (Pick up the can, throw out the trash.)
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To: skeeter
But I will say I've seen dung spatter in primate exhibits that made a better impression than this clown's essay.

I just spat iced tea all over my desk. Thanks a lot lol.

25 posted on 07/09/2014 4:24:44 PM PDT by darkangel82
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To: Bullish

How do these supposed “dim bulb” Republicans become state governors? Rick Perry, Ronald Reagan, Sarah Palin, Calvin Coolidge, etc.?


26 posted on 07/09/2014 4:33:01 PM PDT by 2ndDivisionVet (The most dangerous man to any government is the man who is able to think things out for himself.)
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To: 2ndDivisionVet
Refusing to shake hands in public with the president of the United States is just an idiot thing to do

Refusing to shake the hand of this Marxist, Mooslim, Kenyan, Steaming Pant Load posing as the pResident makes me PROUD to be a Texan.

27 posted on 07/09/2014 4:36:58 PM PDT by Feckless (I was trained by the US << This Tagline Censored by FR >> ain't that irOnic?)
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To: 2ndDivisionVet

Is this satire or did this guy just graduate from journalism school?


28 posted on 07/09/2014 4:47:15 PM PDT by willk (everyone)
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To: willk

No, he’s my age (54) and very well-respected amongst the left-wingers.


29 posted on 07/09/2014 4:51:37 PM PDT by 2ndDivisionVet (The most dangerous man to any government is the man who is able to think things out for himself.)
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To: 2ndDivisionVet
Send 200 illegal alien "children" to Michael Tomasky's house.
He says he'd like to take care of them.
30 posted on 07/09/2014 5:03:56 PM PDT by TigersEye ("No man left behind" means something different to 0bama.)
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To: 2ndDivisionVet

brilliant hate spew from the ultra-tolerant, noted..laughing at the superior intellect..
But here’s the deal.
WAKE UP GOPe, see the headline????
Give in, bow down, bend over, open up and say ahhh,and your STILL a bigoted bunch of hateful, intolerant, racists.
See....the headlines??
Think it’s gonna stop?
Think the libs and progs want us all to be one happy family??
Give em everything they want Boner,you’ll find the reaction no different than if you would have stood your ground at every turn, against these tyrants


31 posted on 07/09/2014 5:04:20 PM PDT by snappahead (if your gonna be dumb, you better be tough.)
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To: 2ndDivisionVet

The Daily Beast should know how to spell Comrade Trotsky’s name properly. I’m surprised they messed it up so badly this time.


32 posted on 07/09/2014 5:05:41 PM PDT by Gritty (Obama's governing as president of a Latin American republic, where only the president matters-MSteyn)
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To: 2ndDivisionVet
Comments? Well, it's interesting to see the comments of the readers of the Daily Beast.

Looks like they're pretty pissed off at Obama, the few posters who are cognizant, anyway.

The reader comments at the sites of these news stories tell you as much, if not more about what's going on than the main story. A lot more, in some cases.

That's why I'm so confident that liberals are the minority in America, along with the fact that it only stands to reason that they're the minority because they have to cheat. Otherwise they'd lose because the majority would blow them off at the ballot box.

33 posted on 07/09/2014 5:18:44 PM PDT by Finny (Thy word is a lamp unto my feet, and a light unto my path. -- Psalm 119:105)
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To: 2ndDivisionVet

anti-invasion is now considered bigotry?

the left is lousy with raving nut bags


34 posted on 07/09/2014 5:21:33 PM PDT by sten (fighting tyranny never goes out of style)
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To: 2ndDivisionVet

I say we drop off a busload of illegals at Mikey’s house.


35 posted on 07/09/2014 5:22:32 PM PDT by Sirius Lee (All that is required for evil to advance is for government to do "something")
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To: 2ndDivisionVet

“Rick Perry is awful for not shaking his hand”

So would that make all the Colorado Democrats, including Hickenlooper and Mark Udall, even more awful since they ducked Obama’s visit to Denver yesterday because they didn’t want to have any joint pictures taken with him, much less shake his hand, because Obama is so unpopular in Colorado?


36 posted on 07/09/2014 5:32:09 PM PDT by catnipman (Cat Nipman: Vote Republican in 2012 and only be called racist one more time!)
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To: 2ndDivisionVet

37 posted on 07/09/2014 5:47:58 PM PDT by FreeAtlanta (Liberty or Big Government - you can't have both.)
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