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Obama's slips

I try not to pay attention to the crazy stuff that goes around about President Obama. For example, I recently received an email warning that he's secretly assembling an army to fight the "civil war" that's due to erupt later this winter. Nonsense, but you can find it out there on the Net.

But I had to check out a column published today in the High Point Enterprise (not posted). It said the Obamas had a Mao Zedong ornament on their White House Christmas tree. I had certainly heard nothing about such a ridiculous thing.

Yet, it's true. They did. Here's a credible report from the European Union Times of Dec. 24.

(Update: The veracity of this report has been questioned by reader scharrison. I'm willing to leave it as an open question and to invite further information. Here's the Fox News report, for whatever anyone thinks that's worth.)

(Further update: scharrison says he's confirmed the accuracy of the report. Please carry on the discussion in the comment string.)

Unbelievable. Decorate your Christmas tree with an image of one of the greatest mass murderers of all time, a communist dictator who tried to stamp out Christianity and all other religions in his country.

Where was Hitler, Stalin and, for irony, King Herod?

Great idea, especially when a segment of the country already thinks this president is a closet Marxist. It turns out he's a Christmas tree Maoist.

Meanwhile, the Triad's new right-wing radio gabbers, Bill Flynn and Pam Furr (see Jeri's column today), were hitting Obama hard this morning about closed-door health-care reform negotiations. They played tape after tape of candidate Obama promising an open process, declaring negotiations would be broadcast on C-SPAN.

This is a legitimate issue. Obama did make those promises, they were a big part of his campaign pitch, and he has broken them. Even C-SPAN, in its politically neutral way, has called him on it.

Nearing the first anniversary of his inauguration, Obama is slipping. He has work to do to restore faith with the American people.

 
Posted by Doug Clark on Thursday, January 7, 2010 at 8:29 am

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NC Girly

January 7, 2010 - 10:14 am EST

Well Doug you see, Obama like any other political figure in front of a camera says a lot of things to get the attention of the American people. They for whatever reason, forget these are taped sessions and will at some point come back to haunt. Like ALL political figures running for any office, it's easy to say what you will do without any clue of what's truly going on. In other words don't make promises you might not be able to keep! Open-door negotiations for health care reform is something Obama should do to regain some support from the American people. If this reform goes to a complete closed door type situation, it's not going to be a positive thing among the people. That's just my opinion. Have a great day! :)

Doug

January 7, 2010 - 10:42 am EST

Closed negotiations happen all the time in government, especially during a reconciliation process. Obama could not even force Harry Reid and Nancy Pelosi to deliberate in front of TV cameras even if he wanted to. His problem, of course, was making such a promise, repeatedly and emphatically, creating this impression that he was going to usher in a new kind of open and honest politics.

Jon

January 7, 2010 - 10:32 am EST

White House had an outside decorator do the tree trimmings. According to that Times article, in addition to Mao, also had a decoration of some tranny entertainer and the President superimposed on Mount Rushmore. Interesting how this type of information originally shows up in the foreign press.

In addition to not wanting the public know via televised proceedings the extent and real cost of the proposed healthcare plan, Congress probably doesn't want the public to discover the extent of their member's ignorance of what's really in the plan.

Doug

January 7, 2010 - 10:38 am EST

I think this was the original report, at the BigGovernment blog:

http://biggovernment.com/2009/12/22/transvestites-mao-and-obama-decorate...

Andrew Clark

January 7, 2010 - 11:44 am EST

Sadly, presidential candidates always promise a lot of things they don't have the authority to carry out. The public perception of the role of the president is an office that is much more powerful than it is in reality. Obama has absolutely no control over how Congress conducts its internal affairs and has extremely limited control on what items Congress has on its agenda and sends to him to sign. The foolishness of the whole C-SPAN pledge is that even if the conference committee negotiations were televised, the real negotiations would be taking place off camera through aids or in side meetigns. The televised debates in committees and on the floor are never real debates or negotiations, but a bunch of politicians spouting often-repeated prepared remarks. No one's going to say in front of the camera, "I don't like this provision because I get a lot of money from big pharma." Congress is dysfunctional, and will continue to be so as long as members of Congress see their primary job as fundraising. Obama was wrong, not for not changing this, because he has even less ability to do so now than he did as a senator, but for promising that he could.

tonymo

January 7, 2010 - 12:03 pm EST

Andrew, you could have saved a lot of space by simply saying what Mrs. Pelosi said, that Obama LIED, repeatedly.

Doug, if you watched Glenn Beck you would have seen, as I did, a photo of the tree displaying the infamous ornament. You would have also seen his recently departed Communications Director, and his manfacturing czar praisng Mao.

You would also seen his FCC "diversity" czar praising Hugo Chavez's "incredible revolution."
He also said that to make things more "fair" some "white" people will have to step down from their positions to make room for "people of color" in the media. You would have also seen his saying that he is against the Fairness Doctrine because "it doesn't go far enough!"

You would have seen a photo of Obama, as a college professor, standing at a chalk board lecturing his students about one of the people he most admires, Saul Alinsky. You would have seen video of his good friend, Andy Stern head of SEIU, during a PBS interviews saying, "workers of the world unite is no longer just a saying." When asked how he would achieve his goals he replied, "first we try the power of persuasion. If that doesn't work, we'll use the persuasion of power!"

You'll also find out many other not so pleasant things that you obviously don't want to know.

Andrew Clark

January 7, 2010 - 7:14 pm EST

Um, did Any Stern just admit that the SEIU would resort to lobbying? HORRORS!!

Honestly, Tony, your hate-filled rants are one thing, but now your'e just being stupid.

scharrison

January 7, 2010 - 11:54 am EST

"Yet, it's true. They did. Here's a credible report from the European Union Times of Dec. 24."

Doug. Buddy. Before you attach credibility to a source, you might want to spend a little time vetting the source. They also published the nonsensical Obama civil war thingie you discredited above:

http://www.eutimes.net/2009/11/obama-orders-1-million-us-troops-to-prepa...

I'm going to look into this ornament thing, because those photos look pretty fishy. Until I get back, be careful playing on the Interwebs, or I'll be forced to disconnect your Commodore 64. :)

Doug

January 7, 2010 - 12:34 pm EST

Well, that's disturbing about the European Union Times. I didn't know it was over the edge, but printing that million-troop nonsense does debunk it's credibility.

The Christmas tree ornament story is hard to believe, so I'm open to the possibility it's a hoax. Anything that settles the issue will be welcome.

Connie Mack Jr

January 7, 2010 - 12:49 pm EST

Nearing the first anniversary of his inauguration, Obama is slipping. He has work to do to restore faith with the American people.* Doug

Well! The first thing he needs to do is cut down that Pagan Xmas Tree at the White House and shipped the Wood to Yemen to fuel the million man army. Than he needs to stop going to Hawai for vacation while he is hiding his birth Cert from the Communists and the Republican party who want to void the past presidental election. After that he should confess to Glenn Beck that he is simply George Bush 2 evil twin on Steriods........And finally, Obama should tell the world that he is the Anti-Christ and Jesus is not coming back to save the Republican Party....

scharrison

January 7, 2010 - 12:48 pm EST

Okay, you can go back out and play, just be careful. It appears that the First Lady sent out several hundred ornaments to be decorated by various and sundry community groups, as opposed to the "weird Barney's guy" being responsible, but it looks like the ornament part of the story is true. Here's an LA Times blog where Andrew Breitbart can be found in the comments section railing against Lefties:

http://latimesblogs.latimes.com/culturemonster/2009/12/a-warhol-christma...

Towards the end of the comments, the fact that the Nixon Library has a statue of Mao is brought up, but I'm not sure flogging poor old Tricky Dick will get us anywhere. Funny, though.

Doug

January 7, 2010 - 1:04 pm EST

Thanks, Steve. I don't know why a "community group" would be allowed to hang any kind of ornament it wanted without someone at the White House at least looking at it. So, most likely, someone at the WH did look at Mao and say, "How nice. It's Mao."

As for Mao at the Nixon library, didn't he figure into one of the signature accomplishments of Nixon's presidency?

scharrison

January 7, 2010 - 2:07 pm EST

Oh yeah. I would say it was much more of a "signature" event (I'm not sure 'accomplishment' is the proper term) than having a few tiny images on a handful out of hundreds of Christmas tree ornaments. Take the time to read this entire conversation:

http://www.presidentialtimeline.org/html/record.php?id=296&transcript

and you should find quite a bit to talk about re Presidential ideology and ignoring the evil that men do.

Doug

January 7, 2010 - 2:19 pm EST

I'm not going to be able to read that now, but I can assume where you're going.

Yes, you can argue that Nixon should not have touched Mao with a 10,000-mile pole. But, just as we had to deal with the Soviets in that era, there's a realpolitik case to be made for establishing diplomatic relations with China.

It's a moral dilemma. You could say that, by 1972, Mao's worst excesses were in the past and China was poised to enter the modern world. But it did require overlooking terrible atrocities for Nixon to shake his hand.

(Maybe Mao thought the same about Nixon.)

scharrison

January 7, 2010 - 3:35 pm EST

Read it when you can, but the main reason I posted that was because it begs the question: What would critics of the time have said about Nixon if they knew he praised the writings of Mao:

"I said that because I have read the Chairman’s poems and speeches, and I know he was a professional philosopher...The Chairman’s writings moved a nation and have changed the world."

Or that he was willing to ignore what the Chinese government did to its own people in exchange for a vague power-sharing agreement:

"What brings us together is a recognition of a new situation in the world and a recognition on our part that what is important is not a nation’s internal political philosophy. What is important is its policy toward the rest of the world and toward us...Therefore, we can find common ground, despite our differences, to build a world structure in which both can be safe to develop in our own way on our own roads."

What would Andrew Breitbart have said? What would Beck or Hannity or Limbaugh have said? The answer is, probably nothing, because it wouldn't fit their agenda.

Doug

January 7, 2010 - 3:57 pm EST

I would think even liberal commentators would excoriate Nixon for those statements. Did they? I didn't follow politics closely enough during my high school days so I don't know. Nixon deserved it. Obviously history has not been kind to him, ironically, except primarily for his outreach to China.

scharrison

January 7, 2010 - 4:13 pm EST

I may be wrong, but I'm pretty sure that particular transcript wasn't released (or discovered) until after the Nixon library opened. I seem to recall a C-SPAN program that talked about the sheer volume of stuff that had never been seen by the public. I think it's an ongoing thing too, where newly found archives are added. I could get lost for days in a place like that. ;)

Jon

January 7, 2010 - 6:06 pm EST

At the time, as I recall, the liberals were stunned that a narrow minded - backward thinking - right wing - paranoid Republican President made the first step of opening dialogue between the Chinese, as well as the Russians. I don't believe the Left ever fully recovered from the shock (the New Left, SDSer's and such, during that era then became the irrelevant Left) when Nixon held out a hand to the Commies and said, let's you and I talk, then turned to Henry K. and told him, OK Henry, here's your assignment.

Dogwood

January 7, 2010 - 1:32 pm EST

I have a musty red book that contains the 1966 quotations from Chairman Mao Tse-Tung printed in the People's Republic of China. The Mao Zedong and the Mao Tse-Tung name change must be a Chinese thing. Almost all ornaments are made in China these days. Once upon a time North Carolina made beautiful glass ornaments but China shut the doors. Times Square has a billboard showing the Great Wall of China coat ad. Red and star Mao-Zedong is weird chemistry.

Doug Johnson

January 7, 2010 - 1:41 pm EST

Sorry Andrew, I was raised to believe a man's word was his honor.
I guess that's that darn Cherokee blood.
Of course if I ever have dealing with you, I need a signature.
What we have learned is Obama word, is not worth spit!
All Obama has to say is, I will not sign this, unless it's debated on C SPAN..
NC Girly many politicians try and keep their word.
You know what they are called? Losers in the next election.
If you were old enough to remember, the press at one time, forced politicians to keep their word.

Doug

January 7, 2010 - 2:09 pm EST

Doug Johnson, disagreeing with Andrew over politics doesn't give you grounds to say his word can't be trusted.

This is a young man who, when he was leaving to return home, promised a class of his students in Africa that he would return for their graduation two years later. This past September, he did.

http://travel.webshots.com/photo/2500633230105618164AHXYIF

And you can believe me, because I went with him, it wasn't easy to keep that promise.

tonymo

January 7, 2010 - 2:51 pm EST

Andrew's keeping his word and going back to Africa is commendable. Perhaps he can run for Congress and actually fulfill his oath to protect and defend the Constitution!

I wonder how he views the actions of his beloved Demo-Rats during the despicable health care "debate." I would guess he has no problem with any of their actions, including the complete lack of transparency in this major piece of legislation.

This from CNN's Jack Cafferty, a usually reliable supporter, "President Obama hasn't even made a token effort to keep his campaign promises of more openness and transparency in government. It was all just another lie told for political expediency."

"The Democrats insist this is all on the up-and-up... with House Speaker Nancy Pelosi saying "there has never been a more open process for any legislation." Really?

This is the same Nancy Pelosi who, after becoming Speaker in 2006, promised the Democrats would have "the most honest, most open and most ethical Congress in history." Let's hope the voters remember some of this crap when the midterm elections roll around later this year."

It must be hard to have to defend this man who has been shown to be a complete fraud! He is amazingly destroying both the country, and his own party! No matter, because it's all about him.

Andrew Clark

January 7, 2010 - 2:48 pm EST

Doug J, that wide-eyed naiveté is adorable. Find me one politician who accomplished all they promised to. And honestly, would you prefer a president who would veto legislation because Congress didn't follow the procedure he demanded? That would be dangerously dictatorial behavior. Besides, he also promised health care reform, didn't he? So it seems he'd be in a position to have to break one promise or the other. Guess which one those who voted for him thought the more important.

Still, I stand by what I said earlier that Obama was wrong to make such a promise. It's something he has no control over, so he shouldn't have acted as if he did.

Doug

January 7, 2010 - 5:11 pm EST

Closing the Guantanamo Bay detention facility within a year was another promise he should not have made. Too many practical problems, the latest being all the Yemeni detainees who suddenly it's inadvisable to send home.

It must be disappointing for followers who believed he could carry out all his promises. A lot of them had never followed politics before and probably had no knowledge of the separation of powers and the limits on presidential power.

Andrew Clark

January 7, 2010 - 7:09 pm EST

Closing Guantanamo is still the right thing to do, and I wish he'd done it by now. Closing the prison there doesn't mean releasing the prisoners. That place was only open in order to have a place for the president to operate outside the rule of law in the treatment of these prisoners and is a disgusting abuse of power that should have been stopped immediately. The prisoners can be kept in the U.S. and handled according to the law. Those who spend all their time complaining about Obama should be the first to demand he end this abuse of his authority.

Doug

January 8, 2010 - 8:06 am EST

Most of the detainees are being treated exactly as they were under the Bush administration. Some will neither be charged with crimes and tried in civilian courts nor released. Once the Gitmo facility is closed, the only difference will be the location of their incarceration. Will that fool critics of U.S. detention policies?

Andrew Clark

January 8, 2010 - 8:30 am EST

Their will be a difference because it will be harder to detain people without cause and those who do abuse them could be held accountable. It would clear up a lot of legal morass. And yes, it would make a huge difference in public opinion around the world. It wouldn't "fool critics," that's never the goal. It would just weaken the critics' arguments.

Get A Clue

January 7, 2010 - 11:15 pm EST

Find me a Presidential candidate who kept all the promised he made on the campaign trail.
Find me a Presidential candidate who did not slip, fall, tumble, misspeak and even outright lie about a policy or event or even leading our nation into war under false pretenses in his first year.
Now find me a journalist of that President's political leanings who stoops to such lame statements of faux outrage such as, "He has work to do to restore faith with the American people."
I am not saying Obama is without fault.
I am not saying only Republican journalists stoop to this level of pandering to their base.
I am calling bull manure on such meaningless statements. Such statements are mere pronouncements that say much more about the speaker than the elected official in question. Only the insecure believe they can speak with authority for "the American people." Only the intellectually lazy believe they can define how the American people define "restoring faith."
But what do I know. I'm just an anonymous meanie who believes one's actions speak more to one's beliefs than say, face painting.

Doug

January 8, 2010 - 8:16 am EST

It's probably a pointless exercise, but let me try to understand your thinking here.

It's wrong to criticize a president for breaking promises because other politicians also break promises?

And then it's "faux outrage" to suggest Obama has work to do to restore faith with the American people? Maybe you're projecting some of your own apparent outrage, which recently you've also aimed at Tim Tebow and, well, all people of religious faith -- or at least disdain.

It is hardly a presumption of speaking for the American people to make the statement I did when polls show Obama's approval ratings have fallen considerably since he took office and now rest below 50 percent. That tells me, and I would suggest any objective observer, that he is losing faith with the American people. Restoring it will not come without working at it.

If you want to refute the statement, make an argument, not an ad hominem attack. But then, I suppose you will do what you do -- and, yes, under the cover of a pseudonym. Very impressive.

By the way, I am not a Republican, and in the 2008 election I voted for both Democrats and Republicans in roughly equal number. I expect all to at least make an honest effort to keep their promises.

tonymo

January 8, 2010 - 9:31 am EST

Doug, you can't argue with abject ignorance. People like clueless harpooneed Bush for 7 years. Now their new mantra is, "Hey our guy is no less competent than Bush was, he hasn't broken any more promises than Bush, yeah he kept Clinton's "Rendition" program in effect, but it really troubles him, yeah he's still killing civilians with Bush's Predator Drones but he really feels about it, and Bush would have taken over the banks and auto companies, and student loans, and would have given Fannie and Freddie UNLIMITED access to taxpayer funds, etc."

The only difference is that Bush did run as a "new kind of politician" who would get rid of lobbyists (Obama kept them, and added tax cheats, Communists, Marxists), and change "the way things are done in Washington!" One has to be clearly disturbed to defend the methodology of the health care fiasco. Mrs. Pelosi called it the "most transparent" legislative process ever. But we all know that Pelosi is clearly deranged!

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