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“They Do It Because We Don’t Stop Them”: Disrespect For The President And The Office Of The Presidency

My favorite song is “Respect” by Aretha Franklin. And many will tell you, respect is earned. But in some cases, it’s a given. Example? The office of the president of the United States of America. You might not like or respect the man, but you’ve got to respect the office. This is a concept many Americans agree on, even if they disagree ideologically.

Although I’m not that old a broad yet, I am seeing a growing number of Americans disrespect not only the man in the Oval Office, but the office of the president. It seems the older I get, the less respect Americans have for our commander in chief. And I wonder why that is.

One possibility is we as a nation do not hold persons who are disrespectful toward a president accountable for their actions.

This week alone we have seen two examples of great disrespect for our president and the office he holds. And where is the outrage?

1. Secret Service agents allegedly being “serviced’ by prostitutes: On a flight from New York to Los Angeles, I recently read a story by a former Secret Service agent for the late President John F. Kennedy. He never forgave himself for being close to the president, yet not close enough to stop the shooting of the president (to take a bullet for him) when JFK was shot in Dallas. Still, to this day, it haunts him. He respected both the president and the first lady. He took his job seriously, and his job was to protect the president. He not only respected the man and the office, he respected his own position, his duty, and his country. The recent reported behavior by the 11 Secret Service agents makes me wonder, if they could be so disrespectful to those women, to another country, and to our own country and the positions they hold, how could they protect our president? And what disrespect to that man, the office, and our country. How times have changed. 

2. Ted Nugent and his violent rhetoric: At a recent National Rifle Association convention, these words were uttered by Ted Nugent: “I’ll tell you this right now: If Barack Obama becomes the president in November, again, I will either be dead or in jail by this time next year.” And: “We need to ride into that battlefield and chop their heads off in November. Any questions?” And further, Nugent warned listeners that if they did not “get everybody in your lives to clean house in this vile, evil, America-hating administration, I don’t even know what you’re made out of.” He added: “If the coyote’s in your living room, pissing on your couch, it’s not the coyote’s fault. It’s your fault for not shooting him.” He also denounced the administration as “criminals” and said a Democratic victory in November would mean “we’ll be a suburb of Indonesia next year”—an apparent reference to President Obama’s boyhood time there.

Now the Secret Service is speaking to him about “what he meant” when he said he would be dead or in jail; I’m more concerned with what he meant when he said he wanted the National Rifle Association members to “chop their heads off in November.”

Some will say this is just Nugent being a loudmouth, he isn’t really threatening the president. Perhaps that is true, but what about the idiot who will follow Nugent’s words and make a true threat or attempt to carry out such violent rhetoric? Have we learned nothing from the shooting of Rep. Gabby Giffords?! When will the use of such language stop?! And the disrespect!

Why is it OK to speak so disrespectfully about a Democratic president, but if the same were said about a Republican, it would be consider unpatriotic or perhaps even treason?

Although I might anger many of you with what I’m about to write, I truly, truly believe it in my heart. I feel that the Secret Service and Ted Nugent, consciously or otherwise, feel it is OK to disrespect the president because of his skin color.

No other president’s birth right has been questioned. No other president has been portrayed as a monkey on a porch, mimicking a terrible, terrible racial slur. No other president has been portrayed physically on a billboard as Hitler—more than once. Shall I go on?

The bottom line? Threatening anyone’s life is wrong, whether Democrat or Republican, and especially our commander in chief. Respect the office. Hold those accountable who use such violent rhetoric; they do it because we don’t’ stop them. And if you disagree with someone, don’t threaten to shoot them. I disagree with my husband all the time, and he is very, very much alive.

 

By: Leslie Marshall, U. S. News and World Report, April 18, 2012

April 19, 2012 Posted by | Democracy | , , , , , , , , | 1 Comment

“Delusional And Verbally Violent”: Romney Backer And NRA Board Member Ted Nugent Loses His Mind

Mitt Romney begged NRA board member and aging rocker Ted Nugent for his endorsement last month, and the brash, verbally-violent sometimes Washington Times columnist even bragged about it. But over the weekend at the NRA’s annual fundraiser, Ted Nugent’s mouth ran wild and Mitt Romney has been nowhere to be found.

Ted Nugent said President Obama and Attorney General Eric Holder “don’t believe in the Constitution,” the Obama administration is “wiping its ass with the Constitution,” called the four non-conservative Supreme Court justices “evil anti-American people,” demanded the America people “chop their heads off in November,” and suggested if Obama wins re-election he might kill him.

If you want more of those kinds of evil anti-American people in the Supreme Court, then don’t get involved and let Obama take office again. Because I’ll tell you this right now: if Barack Obama becomes the president in November, again, I will either be dead or in jail by this time next year….

But if you can’t go home and get everybody in your lives to clean house in this vile, evil, America-hating administration I don’t know what you’re made of. If you can’t galvanize and promote and recruit people to vote for Mitt Romney we’re done. We’ll be a suburb of Indonesia next year….

Our president, and attorney general, our vice president, Hillary Clinton, they’re criminals, they’re criminals. And if you take that adamant ‘we the people’ defiance, remember we’re Americans because we defied the king. We didn’t negotiate and compromise with the king, we defied the emperors. We are patriots, we are bravehearts. We need to ride into that battlefield, and chop their heads off in November.

Nugent added,

We’ve got four Supreme Court justices who don’t believe in the Constitution. Does everyone here know that four of the Supreme Court justices not only determined you don’t have the right to keep and bear arms, four Supreme Court justices signed their name to a declaration that Americans have no fundamental right to self-defense.

Of course, this rhetoric is nothing in comparison to Hilary Rosen’s statement that Mitt Romney’s wife Ann “actually never worked a day in her life. She’s never really dealt with the kinds of economic issues that a majority of the women in this country are facing in terms of how do we feed our kids, how do we send them to school and how do we — why we worry about their future.”

Right?

Washington Post columnist Jonathan Capehart writes today that until Mitt Romney ”condemns the rocker, we should all assume he’s fine with that kind of talk from a surrogate. After all, if then-Sen. Barack Obama had to publicly condemn his pastor who said in a 2003 sermon ’God damn America as long as she keeps trying to act like she is God and she is supreme!’ then Romney should do the same with Nugent. That he won’t speaks ill of him and the campaign we can expect him to run in the fall.”

Media Matters today added that ”Nugent refused to back down from his recent inflammatory comments about the Obama administration in a radio interview with CNN contributor Dana Loesch on The Dana Show.”

Nugent told Loesch that “I will stand by my speech” and said that he was being attacked with the “Saul Alinsky Rules for Radicals playbook.”

Speaking at the NRA’s annual meeting Nugent accused President Obama of having a “vile, evil America-hating administration” that is “wiping its ass with the Constitution.” He went on to tell a crowd that “We need to ride into that battlefield and chop their heads off in November” and said that “If Barack Obama becomes the president in November, again, I will either be dead or in jail by this time next year.” The Secret Service is reportedly reviewing Nugent’s comments.

Nugent insisted to Loesch that his message had been “100 percent positive,” and Loesch agreed that he was being used as a “scapegoat” by the Obama administration.

Later in the interview, Nugent added more derogatory comments about Democrats. He described Democratic chair Debbie Wasserman-Schultz as a “brain-dead, soulless, heartless idiot,” and said House Minority Leader Rep. Nancy Pelosi was a “sub-human scoundrel.”

Asked about a request from the Democrats that Mitt Romney (who sought and received Nugent’s endorsement) distance himself from Nugent’s comments, Nugent claimed that “Mitt Romney knows what I’m saying is true. He puts it into words for him, I put it into words for me.”

Former Breitbart editor Dana Loesch interviewed Nugent and tweeted some of his statements, including, “I’ve never in my life threatened anyone’s life.”

We’ll let the Secret Service decide.

Obama himself and the Obama campaign were quick to denounce publicly Hilary Rosen’s comments — which, if anyone bothered to hear both sentences and not the soundbite, most Americans would have agreed with, but Mitt Romney, in his ever-cowardly, ever-flip-flopping way, won’t denounce — but won’t support, either, — Nugent’s comments.

I wonder why?

 

By: David Badash, The New Civil Rights Movement, April 17, 2012

April 18, 2012 Posted by | Election 2012 | , , , , , , , , | 2 Comments

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