Ever since we elected our first non-white chief executive, the GOP has been on a rampage of disrespect. As each month has gone by, the refusal to compromise has become more entrenched, calls for disobedience have grown more strident; even threats that would risk the safety of the President and his family have become accepted rhetoric to those who cannot see past their own European ancestry, who refuse to accept that a large majority of their fellow citizens chose this man to lead them.
The Republican Party, existing in its own echo chamber, has blinded itself to the damage they have not only allowed, but encouraged. They have become so puffed up with the adoration of common hatred that they are completely unaware that other people--not just those within our own borders--are watching.
(Any underlines are mine.)A CANADIAN'S VIEW ON OUR DISREPECT OF PRESIDENT OBAMA'S PRESIDENCY, by William Thomas, Canadian newspaper columnist --
http://kstreet607.com/2013/06/21/a-canadians-view-on-our-disrespect-of-president-obamas-presidency/
"America -- He's Your President for Goodness Sake!
There was a time not so long ago when Americans, regardless of their political stripes, rallied round their president. Once elected, the man who won the White House was no longer viewed as a republican or democrat, but the President of the United States. The oath of office was taken, the wagons were circled around the country's borders and it was America versus the rest of the world with the president of all the people at the helm.
Suddenly President Barack Obama, with the potential to become an exceptional president has become the glaring exception to that unwritten, patriotic rule.
Four days before President Obama's inauguration, before he officially took charge of the American government, Rush Limbaugh boasted publicly that he hoped the president would fail. Of course, when the president fails the country flounders. Wishing harm upon your country in order to further your own narrow political views is selfish, sinister and a tad treasonous as well.
Subsequently, during his State of the Union Address, which is pretty much a pep rally for America, an unknown congressional representative from South Carolina, later identified as Joe Wilson, stopped the show when he called the President of the United States a liar. The president showed great restraint in ignoring this unprecedented insult and carried on with his speech. Speaker Nancy Pelosi was so stunned by the slur, she forgot to jump to her feet while clapping wildly, 30 or 40 times after that...
...At some point, the treatment of President Obama went from offensive to ugly and then to downright dangerous.
The health-care debate, which looked more like extreme fighting in a mud pit than a national dialogue, revealed a very vulgar side of America. President Obama's face appeared on protest signs white-faced and blood-mouthed in a satanic clown image. In other tasteless portrayals, people who disagreed with his position distorted his face to look like Hitler complete with mustache and swastika.
Odd, that burning the flag makes Americans crazy, but depicting the president as a clown and a maniacal fascist is accepted as part of the new rude America.
Maligning the image of the leader of the free world is one thing, butting the president's life in peril is quite another. More than once, men with guns were videotaped at the health-care rallies where the president spoke...
...And still the 'birthers' are out there claiming Barack Obama was not born in the United States, although public documentation proves otherwise. Hawaii is definitely part of the United States, but the Panama Canal Zone where his electoral opponent Senator John McCain was born? Nobody's sure."
I was unaware that John McCain was born in the Panama Canal Zone. It's a surprising turn that seems to have been swept under the GOP birther rug."In President Barack Obama, Americans have a charismatic leader with a good and honest heart. Unlike his predecessor, he's a very intelligent leader. And unlike that president's predecessor, he's a highly moral man.
In President Obama, Americans have the real deal, the whole package and a leader that citizens of almost every country around the world look to with great envy. Given the opportunity, Canadians would trade our leader, hell, most of our leaders for Obama in a heartbeat.
What America has in Obama is a head of state with vitality and insight and youth. Think about it, Barack Obama is a young Nelson Mandela. Mandela was the face of change and charity for all of Africa but he was too old to make it happen. The great things Obama might do for America and the world could go on for decades after he's out of office.
America, you know not what you have.
The man is being challenged unfairly, characterized with vulgarity and treated with the kind of deep disrespect to which no previous president was subjected. It's like the day after electing the first black man to be president, thereby electrifying the world with hope and joy, Americans sobered up and decided the bad old days were better.
President Obama may fail but it will not be a Richard Nixon default fraught with larceny and lies. President Obama, given a fair chance, will surely succeed but his triumph will never come with a Bill Clinton caveat--'if only he'd got control of that zipper.'
Please. Give the man a fair, fighting chance. This incivility toward the leader who won over Americans and gave hope to billions of people around the world that their lives could be enhanced by his example, just naturally has to stop."
I cannot help but think of Eugene Burdick's and William Lederer's 1958 book, The Ugly American. And I cannot help but be embarrassed at that (unfortunately well-deserved) epithet all over again.
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