President Obama treated like Rodney Dangerfield
By George E. Curry
NNPA Columnist
George E. Curry
Like the late comedian Rodney Dangerfield, President Obama does not get any respect. In fact, no modern United States commander-in-chief has been disrespected more than the nation’s first African American president. The most recent example was House Speaker John Boehner’s decision to deny the president’s request to address a joint session of Congress on Sept. 7. It so happens that one of 20 Republican debates was scheduled that evening, prompting Boehner to suggest moving the address to the next night.
According to Betty K. Koed, associate historian of the Senate, “The Senate Historical Office knows of no instance in which Congress refused the president permission to speak before a joint session of Congress.” Boehner aides defend him by saying the speaker didn’t technically refuse the president permission to speak, he just offered the date.
According to the dictionary, however, that’s exactly what Boehner did.
Merriam-Webster defines refuse this way: “to express oneself as unwilling to accept <refuse a gift> <refuse a promotion>.” Dictionary.com lists this among five definitions: “to decline to give; deny (a request, demand, etc.)” Hair-splitting definitions aside, there is no denying that President Obama has been disrespected from coast to coast.
Marilyn Davenport, a member of the Orange County Republican Party in California, e-mailed a cartoon last April with the face of President Obama superimposed on a chimpanzee. He was accompanied by two older chimpanzee “parents.” The inscription on the cartoon: “Now you know why – No birth certificate.”
The New York Post was roundly criticized for publishing a controversial cartoon in the wake of Connecticut police shooting a pet chimpanzee that had viciously attacked its owner’s friend. The cartoon features two cops – one with a gun in his hand still smoking – standing over a dead ape. The caption read, “They’ll Have to Find Someone Else to Write the Next Stimulus Bill.”
Al Sharpton observed, “Being that the stimulus bill has been the first legislative victory of President Obama…and has become synonymous with him, it is not a reach to wonder: are they inferring that a monkey wrote the last bill?” The racist stereotypes were not limited to animals. Dan Grose, the appropriately named former mayor of Los Alamitos, Calif., sent out an e-mail shortly after Obama was inaugurated as president in 2009 under the headline, “No Easter Egg Hunt This Year.” There was an image of the White House lawn covered with watermelons.
Former House Speaker Newt Gingrich tried to dismiss Obama as “the food stamp president” and said Obama “knows how to get the whole country to resemble Detroit.”
Oklahoma Senator Tom Colburn, a Republican, said to have a good relationship with the administration, exploited welfare when discussing Obama. He said of the president, “his intent is to create dependency because it worked so well for him as an African American male.”
Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell tells everyone who will listen that his primary goal is defeating President Obama in 2012.
Rep. Joe Wilson, a Republican from South Carolina, interrupted a presidential address on health care to Congress in 2009 by shouting, “You, lie!”
In many instances, the president is not accorded routine courtesy. At the height of the deficit-ceiling standoff, President Obama telephoned Boehner, only not to have his call promptly returned.
“The president of the United States calls the Speaker of the House, in the midst of an economic crisis, and the speaker won’t pick up the phone? You don’t refuse a call from the president. No matter how deplorable you find his policies,” wrote Michael Kinsley, a member of the editorial board at Bloomberg News. “Everyone knows that, by the rules of telephone tag, it would be Boehner’s obligation to make the next call even if it wasn’t the president of the United States who was trying to reach him.”
After making the first call at night, Obama placed a second call the next day to Boehner, only to be told that Boehner would call him back at 5:30 p.m. And why was Boehner so busy that he didn’t have time to return President Obama’s call? Part of that time was spent “chatting with reporters in the Capitol, joking with one guy about his tan and puffing on a cigarette,” according to the Washington Post.
The disrespect has extended to First Lady Michelle Obama and their two daughters – targets normally considered offlimits in partisan political discourse. Both Rush Limbaugh and Glen Beck mocked Malia Obama on air. Beck did so a couple of days after stating a politician’s family should not be criticized in the public arena.
Michelle Obama is often portrayed as an angry Black woman. Bill O’Reilly said she looks “like an angry woman” and Sean Hannity said that she “sounds angry.”
Some of the fireworks have been generated on the left as well. Former President Bill Clinton has violated the custom of former presidents of not criticizing or offering advice to their successors. And the supposedly liberal New Yorker ran a cover image, said to be a joke, of President Obama dressed in Muslim garb, with an American flag burning in the fireplace of the Oval Office and a photo of Osama bin Laden adorning the wall. Michelle Obama, wearing an Afro and pictured with a rifle strapped to her shoulder, is giving her husband a fist bump.
Except for standing up more forcefully to his Republican critics, there is not much Obama can do about the disrespect. But there is plenty we can do – kick the bums out.
George E. Curry, former editor- in-chief of Emerge magazine and the NNPA News Service, is a keynote speaker, moderator, and media coach. He can be reached through his Web site, www.georgecurry.com. You can also follow him at www.twitter.com/currygeorge.
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George, did you sleep through the presidency of George Bush 43? He got more disrespect on any given day than President Obama has to date.
By Obama’s own admission, if you read his book, Obama is only 7% black. Not 50%, not 100%. If you want to support a Black for President, then I would look at Herman Cain. He’s my choice. A good man with great ideas.
The author apparently slept through the George W. Bush years. The press annilated him, made fun of him, called in an idiot, a buffoon. There was even a fake “documentary” on his assassination. Obama has been handled with kid gloves. Imagine if Bush had said he didn’t speak “Austrian”. Or if he had walked into a White House window. Or if he had said there were 57 states. I could go on, but the press does not consider attacks on a Republican president as uncivil. If a Republican had shouted “Let’s take the sob’s out”, my God, it would be all over the news above the fold for days. Jimmy Hoffa, Jr. says it, and the POTUS doesn’t even bring up his new civil tone he spoke of at his campaign kickoff in Tucson. (I only refer to it as such, since each chair had a t-shirt on it with a “Rock the Vote” slogan. Hardly fitting at a memorial, but I digress.) So, Mr. Curry, just go back about 4 years and you’ll see mass disrespect for a sitting president, if you only pay attention.
Spare me. President Bush was hung in effigy by left wingers and Democrats. Charles Schumer was introduced to speak at a meeting as “the man who would put a bullet between George Bush’s eyes, if he could get away with it.” Bush was labeled “Bushitler”. Al Gore declared that President Bush had “betrayed us.”
No President was more disrespected than President Bush.
So where were you from 2000 to 2008?????? This obsession with calling people racist who do not agree with the POTUS is past the use date. The MSM have never put out any news that they think may even be a bit bad for him. Get over your thin skin. No that is not racist and either am I. Report me to AttackWatch while I’m at it.
Bush was called Bushhitler and many other names you can not be thinned skinned and be president. Obama began his presdency by saying he won and pushed his partisan stimulus. He seems to be president of the peole who voted for him and not all Americans. Respect is earned not just given.
On your first claim about Boehner’s rejection being the first ever:
The June 24, 1986, edition of The Wall Street Journal featured a story headlined, “President’s Bid to Address the House On Nicaragua Is Rejected by Speaker.” That’s right, no quibbling over the date and time, just a flat-out rejection. In that case, President Ronald Reagan wanted to address the House before its critical vote on funding for the anti-communist “Contra” rebels in Nicaragua. Then-Speaker Thomas “Tip” O’Neil said that he was willing to host a Reagan speech if it was expanded to include the Senate in a joint session, or he would allow the President to speak to the House alone if the President would also agree to take questions from lawmakers. Otherwise, there would be no Reagan speech in the House chamber. Reagan already had the votes to prevail in the Senate, and Mr. O’Neil wanted to avoid having the spotlight turned on the House, which would make him and his colleagues accountable to the public if Contra aid were rejected.
The Bush twins were fair game for the press and liberal celebreties. They showed little mercy.
Mr. Curry must have been asleep during Pres. Bush’s 8 years—never has there been a President that was disrespected more than he. He couldn’t even go to Coretta Scott King’s funeral without being dispected to his face. Aren’t we suppose to be beyond race now that Pres. Obama is there, it shouldn’t matter what color he is.
Mr. Curry – I respectfully disagree with you President Obama has been given a pass by the MSM from the time he started running for the president until just recently – even today there is little critique of him – So far the things that people are not happy with – the econmoy, his handling of this whole Green energy program and the numerous misses from his cabinet fall of him – HIS color or race have little to do with it – the democrats had a free hand for over 2 years and screwed things up royally and President Obama was given a pass. President Bush was hounded about everything he did – he did not react fast enough – he did not do it this way or that way – he was an idiot according to the MSM – so President Obama is getting off easy.
Respect isn’t GOTTEN….it is earned….
You’re obviously too young to remember President George W. Bush. He was treated much worse than the current President but it was so long ago that few in the liberal media remember.
Most of these lies on our President come from FOX News, if you tell a lie enough people will beleive it. How can anyone say the President doesn’t love this country is just unbeleivable to me. That goes for any President wheater you like them or not.
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