Pruden: Obama lacks "blood impulse" for what America "is about" due to "Kenyan father," "mother attracted to men of the Third World"
November 16, 2009 11:40 pm ET by Media Matters staff
From Washington Times editor emeritus Wesley Pruden's November 17 column (emphasis added):
So far it's a memorable trip. He established a new precedent for how American presidents should pay obeisance to kings, emperors, monarchs, sovereigns and assorted other authentic man-made masters of the universe. He stopped just this side of the full grovel to the emperor of Japan, risking a painful genuflection if his forehead had hit the floor with a nasty bump, which it almost did. No president before him so abused custom, traditions, protocol (and the country he represents). Several Internet sites published a rogue's gallery showing how other national leaders - the prime ministers of Israel, India, Slovenia, South Korea, Russia and Dick Cheney among them - have greeted Emperor Akihito with a friendly handshake and an ever-so-slight but respectful nod (and sometimes not even that).
Now we know why Mr. Obama stunned everyone with an earlier similar bow to King Abdullah of Saudi Arabia, only the bow to the Japanese emperor was far more flamboyant, a sign of a really deep sense of inferiority. He was only practicing his bow in Riyadh. Sometimes rituals are learned with difficulty. It took Bill Clinton months to learn how to return a military salute worthy of a commander in chief; like any draft dodger, he kept poking a thumb in his eye until he finally got it. Mr. Obama, on the other hand, seems right at home now giving a wow of a bow. This is not the way an American president impresses evildoers that he's strong, tough and decisive, that America is not to be trifled with.
[...]
But Mr. Obama, unlike his predecessors, likely knows no better, and many of those around him, true children of the grungy '60s, are contemptuous of custom. Cutting America down to size is what attracts them to "hope" for "change." It's no fault of the president that he has no natural instinct or blood impulse for what the America of "the 57 states" is about. He was sired by a Kenyan father, born to a mother attracted to men of the Third World and reared by grandparents in Hawaii, a paradise far from the American mainstream.
Previously:
Media Matters: Will Glenn Beck's The Blaze follow Breitbart's trail?
Media Matters: On the brink of Glenn Beck's salvation
It doesn't get much more offensive than that, does it? Personally attacking his parents, and suggesting that he has fatally flawed genetics because of that and then implying that his grandparents did a poor job of raising him while attacking the character of everyone in Hawaii at the same time?
Wow.
If I remember correctly, the WT was started by that Moonie guy.....
Just curious... how sleazy do you suppose you need to go to be noticed by the lowest denominator of our society?
Because with a sick op-ed like this one, you certainly are well on your way down into the slime of the rest of the right-wing media slugs!
Beyond that, as much as I admire our president, I can't say I've ever noticed that self-esteem is much of a problem for him.
One other thing: This has all the markings of a classic heads-I-win, tails-you-lose trap: If Obama doesn't bow, the same blowhards are caterwauling about how "arrogant" and "elitist" he is.
I know - it's a desert topping AND a floor wax!!
We should initiate a boycott of everyone connected to this rag. That includes Tony Blankley.
A non-American, non-white, self-proclaimed Jesus resurrected nutbag, selling white American bigots on even more hate and bigotry towards non-American, non-white guys. And the white bigots eat it up.
Satan is laughing his ass off on this one.
Pruden thinks whom Obama's mother was attracted to is important because he's aiming for his base, the anti-miscegenation crowd like the Council for Concerned Citizens. Trent Lott said they had the values America needs to go forward. For Lott and Pruden, "going forward' means advancing to the 1940s.
"... it is just wonderful to be back in Oregon, and over the last 15 months we've traveled to every corner of the United States. I've now been in fifty .... seven states? I think one left to go. One left to go. Alaska and Hawaii, I was not allowed to go to even though I really wanted to visit but my staff would not justify it."
So, thinking about 47, and thinking about there being 50 states total, he said "57".
That's the whole story. He said 57. He meant 47. He was tired. The link above is to Snopes - they have the video.
He was tired. That will be the cover all for all dumb things said from this point forward.
I mean if snopes said it was true!<roll eyes>
You really can't possibly believe that.
Do you?
Unless you think that Obama, born after we had 50 states, thinks we have something other than 50 states, it's clear that it was him simply misspeaking.
And since we know that he was talking about getting ready to go to the 48th out of 50 states, which means he'd visited 47, it's clear why he said 57.
And yeah, if you clearly know something, and you make an error like this, and it's clear that you were tired, any fair person would cut you some slack.
But, as we know, Obama's opposition isn't fair towards him. They're scandalous, unpatriotic scoundrels.
Not sure when Japan became an Evildoer again. Didn't Pruden read about Hiroshima and Nagasaki? It was in all the papers, including his own.
Japan doesn't even have a standing army, as per their Constitution, post WWII. Since the occupation there have been attempts by a few administrations to amend the Constitution and rearm, at the urging of the U.S. I might add. But in light of the Japanese people's history with war, their intense fear of war, re-armament won't happen.
WaPo = joke.
End of.
And as we all know, the Washington Times would need to rise 63 levels of integrity to reach "joke" status. The Times can only dream of merely being a joke.
Maybe I'll take out some ad space in the Moonie Times. I'll bet I could sell my sure-fire Beat the Casino method.
Mr. Pruden exemplifies both of these in his WT article.
Being a person of color myself, I understand their goals, although they may never come right out and say them. It would be better if they did, but they won't because, underneath it all, they are the worst kind of cowards. These were the kids who bullied other kids, stole their milk money, and lied about it when their parents asked them about it, and their parents believed their version of events.
>>Now we know why Mr. Obama stunned everyone with an earlier similar bow to King Abdullah of Saudi Arabia, only the bow to the Japanese emperor was far more flamboyant, a sign of a really deep sense of inferiority.>>
You figured all of that out from a bow, Dr Phil?
>>It took Bill Clinton months to learn how to return a military salute worthy of a commander in chief; like any draft dodger, he kept poking a thumb in his eye until he finally got it.>>
Is this juvenile shtick really the way an editor of a major paper writes?
I was planning a vacation recently and considered going to Dick Cheney. Lovely beaches.
Which leads to a pretty obvious question: who is the prime minister of Dick Cheney? Lynne? William Kristol?
Wow, just wow. The drops of blood argument in less than a year in office.
The Washington Times = newsletter for the Knights of the Ku Klux Klan.
Is nothing too blatant, too disrespectful or so demeaning of our president by the rightwing that will stir the mainstream press to finally say 'enough!:
They can spew treason and not a word is said. They can trash, lie and nothing is said. The rightwing pols can go overseas and undermine our foreign policy and demean this president to world leaders and nothing is said. And the rightwing can spew the most racist cr** and nothing is said.
I am sick of the double standard and I am sick of the traditional press ignoring the highjinks of the right.
They treat it as 'oh, the country is in a populist and angry mood'
No. The country is being ginned up by the conservative media and having it fueled on the daily basis. The traditional media dares not call them out for creating this ugly mood and infecting the country with it's poison.
Enough!!!!!!!!!
Pruden is a sorry sack and a coward. If he respects the military sooooo much and feels he is worthy of commenting on other's being "draft dodgers" then he should have thrown down his pencil and pad and took up an M-14 in 65' and proved his mettle. Instead, he castigates others for doing essentially what he did. He asserts our President is inferior and weak because he bowed to the Emperor. since no other President has done this it is somehow proof of his assertion?
There are pictures of Nixon bowing to Hirohito - the Japanese emporer we beat in WWII. Nixon bowed to him in the 60's.
Eisenhower bowed to the French President.
And, my personal favorite - George W Bush walking and holding hands with his mancrush, the Saudi King. And kissing him respectfully on the cheek. Not a word from the Right on that - and this was right after Saudis flew planes into the World trade Center.
How is the Right not convulsing in shame at the thought of Bush's disgusting performance and two Republican presidents bowing to the French and the Japanese? Because they are demented shameless lying hypocrites - they don't even care if they get caught in their lies - they lie anyway.
When they're caught, they just lie louder.
Obama is all those contradictions, but cleaned the republicans' clock anyway?
What does that tell you about the republicans?
There's a reason why this kind of garbage works in the South, the region with the most illiterates, the most people without health insurance, and the worst schools.Need I say more?
With all due respect, I can only believe that you wrote wrote for shock value. To believe otherwise would mean that there are still people in this country who are unable to learn lessons from history. You do not make me proud to be an American!
Of course, Dubya must be lacking the blood impulse too. He may not have bowed to the Saudi king but he held hands with him and kissed him.
Obviously, the writer is an idiot and racist as well as only a marginally competent propagandist. This bowing crap has been going on for thousands of years. The reality is that once the U.S. became a relatively weak nation under Reagan, the politicians running the 'gubmint' decided that we would pretend to be the rulers of the world and everyone would have to bow to us while we barely recognized their existence...which is why we are where we are in the world (struggling in two very minor wars with few friends who can be called upon for any purpose) right now.
Snerd
The Washington Post is a marginally competent news source, and by that I mean that they get it right slightly more often than they get it wrong. This is a far superior performance to Focks Corp. or the Washington Times, though.
The Washington Times takes great pains to appear on the surface to be the Washington Post, but is essentially the Loony-Tune News of the moonies (that's right, that famous American patriot Sun Myung Moon of airport beggar fame) apparently lifted from the reality distortion field of an unknown planet on the far right of the Andromeda Galaxy.
Any way you want to cut Obama is our president. We was elected by the people and for the people and this is the kind of respect that he gets. What great nation we live......
"atta boy" to deem his actions appropriate. Perhaps Mr. Pruden will
continue work on his upcoming MR. MANNERS TOME in silence... I'll bow
to that.
Snerd
Sorry, Groveling just isn't a good word to use. Try again!
How does showing respect to a foreign leader or monarch denote weakness? These other people listed should be chided for their lack of respect or protocol a foreign nation. A sign of weakness? I think not.
This is just another article that demonstrates the ignorance that permeates a section of our society still. 40 years after we supposedly learned better and matured past this kind of idiocy as a society.
This irritates me so bad i can't even keep my thoughts in order to write. I will have to try this again.
This cannot be ignored.
I also intend to write a letter to the editor.
The president trips abroad should be a celebration of our national pride. N0 one nor any citizen should consider his trip otherwise.
I am shock that this journalist had disgrace himself with this article.
I will write give him my piece of mind. His article is Very very tasteless. Our president deserves better.
I am shammed of Washington Times, for publishing this artice.
This is just a sad day.
As the saying goes!! "Uneasy lies the head that wears the grown" I am praying to my God almighty for our president to be a success story.
May God bless him; his family; and our nation. Amen!!1