Small Politics

I’m disgusted right now. I’ve been disgusted for four years, but today I believe my disgust has reached a boiling point of critical mass that will push me off the edge.

Yes, all those analogies are necessary.

I come home from school today and check Twitter, and what do I find? Barack Obama, the President of the United States, making a fool of himself:
 

President Obama: “Rape is rape. It is a crime.” OFA.BO/iNwBCE

— Barack Obama (@BarackObama) October 25, 2012

 

I understand this is par for the course for our President. He realizes he’s in trouble in the election and is throwing anything at the wall to see if it sticks – and he’s still favored to win the election. But I’m more than disgusted with Obama’s ridiculousness. It’s the combination of the last few weeks that have riled me up probably more than I ever have been when it comes to politics. First it was “Big Bird,” then it was “Binders Full of Women.” Meanwhile, millions of Americans are out of work and the nation is $16 trillion in debt and facing trillion dollar yearly deficits.

But then there’s this.

Two days ago we learned the White House and other officials knew the attack on the US Embassy in Benghazi was a terrorist attack, not a “spontaneous demonstration” as a result of a stupid video, within hours. But then for two weeks after, the White House and other officials continued to deny it was an act of terrorism.

That is a story – a huge story. On the anniversary of 9/11, an American embassy was attacked in an Arab country by terrorists and the White House tried to cover it up. And yet all I see on the news, all the news alerts on my phone, all anyone wants to talk about is a stupid comment by a Senate candidate in Indiana that has been twisted so much that the President of the United States is now tweeting that rape is a crime. No, really? We didn’t know.

Of course rape is a crime – but an attack on an American embassy and the cover up of that attack is a travesty and a failure of American leadership and no one is talking about it. And those who are talking about it are just right-wing nutjobs not to be taken seriously.

Based on the rhetoric of the last four years, I’d assume the President would be with me on this one. Consider Barack Obama’s words from 2006 when he announced his candidacy for the presidency:

What’s stopped us from meeting these challenges is not the absence of sound policies and sensible plans. What’s stopped us is the failure of leadership, the smallness of our politics — the ease with which we’re distracted by the petty and trivial, our chronic avoidance of tough decisions, our preference for scoring cheap political points instead of rolling up our sleeves and building a working consensus to tackle big problems.

But no, Barack Obama is tweeting and we’re blowing the whistle. Barack Obama is President and we’re the nutjobs. And the media is complicit.