Always out to get Obama…
While on Facebook this morning, I noticed that several of my “friends” had posted this as their status:
“Obama picks Memorial Weekend to go home to Chicago instead of following traditions and speaking at Arlington Cemetery. The President is the Commander-in-Chief of the Armed Forces but HE needs a break on the ONE day we are supposed to remember troops and all they’ve done. Repost this status if you think our troops are…worth remembering!!!! I do.”
I couldn’t help but roll my eyes at these status posts and decided to do a little investigating. Once again, people have over generalized Obama’s actions in a way that is incredibly ridiculous. According to the Washington Post article I found talking about Obama’s choice to not go to Arlington, Obama has chosen to speak at the Lincoln National Cemetery in Chicago. Sure, Obama is from Chicago so the statement of “he went home” is not incorrect. What is incorrect is the implication that he went home to sit around on his ass and give the middle finger to the troops, as this status update would like you to believe.
He’s still giving a speech on Memorial Day to honor the fallen soldiers. How is THAT not the tradition? Who cares what cemetery he’s speaking at? There are thousands of fallen soldiers, or “American heroes,” scattered about this country, why must the president always speak at just one of the places where they are buried?
Once again, it’s statuses like these that cause such a stream of misinformation and get people fired up for nothing. Sadly, the majority of the people who post this as their status or “like” it as their friend’s status will never look more into the situation to establish what EXACTLY is going on. Also, they’ll conveniently forget what the article points out — Obama is NOT the first President to buck this tradition, and it’s not a decision that can be tied solely to the democratic party.
Seriously people, what’s the big deal? He’s the President of the USA. If he wants to give a speech from the comforts of his own bed, he should be able to without SOMEONE thinking he’s being awful. The important thing is the content of the speech and the action of giving the speech to begin with. What happened to respecting the leader of the free world?
