Pruden: Obama is "our first president without an instinctive appreciation of the culture... whence America sprang"
June 07, 2009 3:11 pm ET by Media Matters staff
From Washington Times editor emeritus Wesley Pruden's June 5 column:
Mr. Obama's revelation of his "inner Muslim" in Cairo reveals much about who he is. He is our first president without an instinctive appreciation of the culture, history, tradition, common law and literature whence America sprang. The genetic imprint writ large in his 43 predecessors is missing from the Obama DNA. He no doubt meant no offense in returning that bust of Churchill ("Who he?") or imagining that a DVD of American movies was appropriate in an exchange of state gifts with Gordon Brown. Nor did he likely understand why it was an offense against history (and good manners) to agree to the exclusion of the Queen from Saturday's commemoration of the Anglo-American liberation of France. Kenya simply routed Kansas.
The great Cairo grovel accomplished nothing beyond the humiliation of the president and the embarrassment of his constituents, few of whom share his need to put America on its knees before its enemies. No president before him has ever shamed us so. We must never forget it.
If I were Barack Obama, I would be very affraid to travel into parts of the country where this kind of mindset ferments. Because as last week showed with Dr. Tiller, they are not affraid to use their guns on those that feel are not worthy of their white Christian USA ideals.
Most dangerous cities in the US
Oh and don't forget Little Rock. We had a terrorist attack against an Army recruiting station.
Little Rock terrorist shooting
Barry should be shaking in his boots in DTW. I couldn't agree more!
Just say'n...
The good thing about the kind of people who think and talk and write like this guy excerpted above, this guy pruden, is that there are far fewer people like that in America and in the world, than you might otherwise think... that's a good thing to take away from this, and to help wash the dirt away if you've been unfortunately and unpleasantly exposed to this kind of person and their thoughts and words... another good thing to keep in mind, is that this kind of person is shunned and repelled and excluded from good company and from good people : true... people who talk like this in front of cultured and respectable people, they aren't necessarily argued with or confronted, instead more than likely their talk is met with a stony silence : but they're never invited back, and they're avoided in the future at all occasions... a last good thing to maybe take away from being exposed to this kind of hatred and racism, is that the people who think and talk like this, they usually die miserable and lonely deaths, not having contributed anything positive or constructive or even human or loving in their lifetime, not toward anyone or anything, their children and other family included.
It'd be sad, if it didn't otherwise seem right and just and a natural consequence of ignorance and hatred.
But as mk3872 pointed out above, all it takes is one of those terrorists and a rifle to equal an assassination. And I have no doubt that Pruden and all of his diseased ilk would like nothing better, and are probably amping up the rhetoric in order to push that one person over the edge. Pruden deserves all the opporbrium ladled over hi, but as far as I'm concerned he's nothing but a terrorist himself, in exact measure with Osama bin Laden...
Clearly, he doesn't know Obama's mom was white... ;)
Big talkers don't know when to stop when they're on a rhetorical roll because they can't remember which facts are actually facts and which "facts" they're making up.
He should listen to himself.
Appreciation of a specific culture is genetic? Washington and Jefferson were "genetically" American? Is he suggesting that Americans evolved ?
I think the point, LF, is that they were genetically white, which is what matters to Osama bin Pruden...
Not aware of culture? or common law? Gee, who do I know who actually really fits these criticisms? Some Texas guy...
I wish we had a word or phrase to utter when someone boldly makes these stupid assertions. If someone says "aliens have taken over the bodies of all grade school janitors", people have a certain array of responses, none of which have to do with checking on the janitors. We should have the same response for this sort of dreck.
Noni
A black man who was brought up by his single mother, got himself educated, got elected to the State senate in Illinois, then the US Senate, and now President, and who was and is a Constitutional scholar, somehow doesn't know from whence America sprang?
Yeah, OK, only in crazy person's world.
If there is a "great American story" of the past recent years, it is Obama's really. It goes to prove that you don't have to be from families of wealth and power to gain the highest office in the land, and that if you're smart enough, and you work hard enough, yes, you can accomplish just about anything. Obama has proved that.
Obama didn't grovel at anyone's feet in Cairo, this guy, like others yapping about his speech there, apparently didn't listen to the entire thing. It was no apology.
He got rid of a bust of Churchill? So freakin' what? Last time I knew, Churchill wasn't an American.
What genetic imprint is this guy talking about? Is that code for something?
What does it matter what he gives as presents? Let me clue you in, it doesn't.
He agreed to the exclusion of the Queen? I'm pretty sure he didn't organize the ceremony, and in year's past, it has been the head of state from England who attended, which is the PM, not the Queen.
He puts in this anglo-American liberation of France (he seems to have forgotten the rest of Europe in there as well, like The Netherlands, Italy, Belgium, Poland, and so on and so forth).
No president has shamed us so? Man, are you wrong. If the president has shamed us so much, how come there were people in the crowd, on his overseas trip, yelling "I LOVE YOU!". Again, only in wingnut land, is this a bad thing. Holy cripes! An American president that the rest of the world likes as well as his own countrymen and women. That is just HORRIBLE!
Noble (virtuous) lies aplenty.
Perpetual war,"America on its knees before its enemies."
Stability/fear via fear of an external threat. Obama by inference has become a part of that external threat and is submissive to them.
Instilling a sense of superiority in a nation.
Contempt for dissenters. In this case Obama is being placed into the alien catagory. Which is also held in contempt.
Manipulation of images, gift giving, proper manners, the humiliation of the president, and, we must never forget.
Gotta steal an image already used.
Mix venom, cambrian rocks, bile, and spit. Vaporize, condence, fractinate, strain, collect in a nonreactive vessel, chill.
Serves 5(%), it'll liven up your next plutcrat get-to-gether, or eliminate a few rivals depending upon their genetic heritage and poison tolerance.
>>>Pruden gave a speech to the United Daughters of the Confederacy in 1998, while editor-in-chief of the W.Times in which he said something which I think may be revealing of not just his mindset alone. He concluded his speech at the Manassas Battlefield Park with this, I think, stunning admission,
"Southerners ... hold loyalty to two countries in our hearts." The second country is one "baptized 137 years ago on this very field in the blood of First Manassas, a country no longer at the mercy of the vicissitudes in the tangled affairs of men, a country that lives within us, a country that will endure for as long as men and women know love. ... God bless America, God bless the Confederate States of America, and God bless you all."
http://www.splcenter.org/intel/intelreport/article.jsp?pid=123
>>>There's one possible answer as to why the Right seems to hate America---half of them may still be at war with it!
"Nor did he likely understand why it was an offense against history (and good manners) to agree to the exclusion of the Queen from Saturday's commemoration of the Anglo-American liberation of France". -- Pruden
>>>Most Americans say 'the Queen' and it's understood as short for the Queen of England. But I wonder if Pruden isn't longing for the good old days.
"Mr. Obama's revelation of his "inner Muslim" in Cairo reveals much about who he is. He is our first president without an instinctive appreciation of the culture, history, tradition, common law and literature whence America sprang. The genetic imprint writ large in his 43 predecessors is missing from the Obama DNA". -- Pruden
>>>If Pruden's going for the ethnic heritage thing i.e. blue-bloods who came over on the Mayflower, President Kennedy wasn't in that group at all but Obama qualifies half-ways. If he's going for nurture over nature, then Obama was raised by the half with deep American roots.
So not only does he hate a unified America, he apparently is either a liar (and this article is just cover for his betrayal of the right-Whites), or he's a very stupid man. Liar or stupid -- "we must never forget it".
Preposterous. It's not possible that such a concept could have been imagined by anyone besides Jesus.
The whole article is ridiculous. Nobody with any sense of intellectual honesty cites the "57 states" line as evidence of anything. I love the suggestion that because we're reaching out to Muslims, the next logical step is to apologize to Germans for invading Normandy. As if Muslim terrorists represent the entire religion or something. Also, the line about how Obama never mentioned terrorism in the speech is misleading. That makes it sound as if he never brought up the topic, not just the word. Did Obama really say "who he?", or does Pruden think that Obama speaks like Tonto or maybe Tarzan? And "blame America first" is always an unmistakable sign of someone who is offended at the very concept of American accountability.
Of course, "his need to put America on its knees before its enemies" is the perfect conclusion to this mess. As if it wasn't clear enough that Pruden doesn't care for Islam itself from his "mote and beam" bit earlier (referring to Muslims, not extremists, terrorists, etc.), this makes it abundantly clear. Trying to connect with Muslims means we're groveling before the enemy? This mode of thought is precisely why we need to communicate with the Muslim world, to let them know that this sort of belligerent bigotry represents neither our policy nor our people.
Of course not. And Pruden's point of reference there isn't Tarzan or Tonto, it's Amos and Andy.
It's worse than I thought; Wes didn't just forget who won the Civil War, he's forgotten who won the Revolution.
This is a world away from the party of Lincoln. They are becoming the party of former Southern Dixiecrats, NeoConfederate Apologists and uneducated Evangelical knuckledraggers.
In reality, it scarcely even resembles the party of Reagan.