Pelosi A Disgrace!

I didn't yell at my TV, but I did utter a small gasp when Speaker Pelosi ripped up her copy of the president's speech. I thought her action was boldly provocative, but also clearly inappropriate. A "disgrace!"? I think that's too strong a judgment. While I respect and concur with the sentiments that apparently prompted her action, it's clear to me that she shouldn't have done it.

As for any comparison of Speaker Pelosi's action to Joe Wilson's infamous "You lie!" protest during one of President Obama's SOTU addresses, I think it's worthy of note that Rep. Wilson acted during the address, while Speaker Pelosi acted after the conclusion of President Trump's. In my view, acting before or after the presidential speech one is protesting is likely to be an offense of lesser magnitude than acting while the address is ongoing. BOTH are inappropriate actions, but one is more so than the other because it interrupts the speech itself. Speaker Pelosi's protest did not interrupt the president's speech.

I thought neither the speaker nor the president handled their differences well last night. I thought her action was inappropriate, but I also thought it was inappropriate for the president not to accept the speaker's offer of a handshake as he took the podium. Was that also a "disgrace!"? No. It was just something he shouldn't have done.

There was MUCH about the president's speech last night, however, that WAS a disgrace. To name three items among many...

• His blatant lie about his concern for the protection of insurance coverage for people with pre-existing conditions, when his Justice Department is in court seeking the end of the Affordable Care Act, one of whose star provisions is such protections. We all know the president has no plan to provide coverage for people with pre-existing conditions (he's said has a plan, but he won't reveal it until after the election!). And if he ever DOES propose a plan, it will NOT provide protection for those people the way the ACA does - namely, so that their premiums are not higher than those paid by people without pre-existing conditions.
• His blazingly misleading and, at points, clearly false depiction of the state of the American economy, both now and before he took office. Mr Trump gave the impression that the economy was in decline when he took office. Wrong. It had been in a seven year expansion. He touted job growth during his term, but the economy produced jobs at a higher rate in the last three years of the Obama administration. He cited advancements in the manufacturing sector, when in the last twelve months, according to the AP, factory output declined 1.3%.
• And finally, the president's decision to award the Presidential Medal of Freedom to Rush Limbaugh, and to do so during the State of the Union address. Mr Limbaugh has a long history of spewing intolerance, division, and racial animus on his program (recall his lurid accusation that Michael J. Fox was either off his meds or faking the symptoms of his Parkinson's Disease). The criteria for the medal is that recipients will be people "who have made exceptional contributions to the security of national interests of America, to world peace, or to cultural or other significant public or private endeavors." Past recipients of the Medal have included Steven Spielberg, Muhammad Ali, Nancy Reagan, Mother Teresa, Rosa Parks, and Martin Luther King, Jr. Mr. Limbaugh does NOT meet those criteria and has NO place among that group of peers; it is a disgrace that Mr Trump believed he does. It's also highly problematic that the president chose to award the medal during the SOTU address - to his frothing political base - instead of during of a White House ceremony where EVERY OTHER RECIPIENT has received it.

Speaker Pelosi shook her head in response to the president's many false, misleading, and/or divisive statements, which in my view makes her reactions as legitimate as was the Vice President's reaction when he smiled or stood to applaud in response to many of the president's statements. If you believe the vice president had the right to smile and/or to interrupt the president's speech by rising physically from his seat to express his response, on what grounds do you claim the speaker did NOT have the right to shake her head or move physically in other ways while still in her seat - WITHOUT interrupting the speech - to express her response? Surely you don't claim that only people who support the president have the right to express their responses to presidential speeches through physical movements, do you?

As for her manipulation of the speech's text, it was many pages long. It looked to me as if she was following along closely, and perhaps reading ahead as the president proceeded, which doesn't sound like a violation to me.

Your response here reminds me of the president's legal team's defense of the president during the Senate's impeachment trial. They said - until they tried to walk it back - as long the nation's interests were among the president's motives with regard to Ukraine, his other motives didn't matter and his actions couldn't be impeachable. In your current response, you seem to argue that as long as Mr Limbaugh's conduct and impact can be described among the Presidential Medal of Freedom's criteria, his other actions and conduct - even if they violate the spirit of those criteria - don't matter and can't exclude him from consideration. So because Mr Limbaugh has had a significant cultural impact, it doesn't matter that in the process of creating that impact he has regularly spewed intolerance, misogyny, and racial animus. In my view, that's NOT sufficient reason to give him the Presidential Medal of Freedom ( ESPECIALLY not in search of the personal political effect the president sought by doing so during his SOTU!) My goodness, Joe McCarthy had a great cultural impact, but no one considered giving HIM the Presidential Medal of Freedom.

I will disqualify Dr King as soon as you demonstrate that his violations of the spirit of the Freedom Medal's standards were comparable to Mr. Limbaugh's.

• Mr Limbaugh's cultural impact in large part has been a result of his conduct that violates spirit of the standards. Without his provocative, divisive, intemperate, misogynistic, and yes, racist rhetoric, he would not have had NEARLY the impact that he's had.
• Dr. King's cultural impact in large part was the result of his leadership of the American civil rights movement. Without his poetic, inspirational, and yes, faith-based rhetoric, he would not have had NEARLY the impact he had.

Did Dr King make mistakes? Yes. Did he have his moral failings? Yes. But were those moral failings critical to his impact in society and culture? Absolutely not.

Has Mr Limbaugh made mistakes? Yes. Has he had his moral failings? Yes. Have HIS moral failings been critical to his impact on society and culture? Absolutely. I doubt seriously that Dr King would have called President Obama a "halfrican American" as did Mr Limbaugh.

Bottom line: Dr King didn't become famous for preaching and embodying intolerance or deepening divisions in American society. Mr Limbaugh did. Dr King became famous for calling the nation to unity, to the brother- and sisterhood of all humanity. Mr Limbaugh did not. Dr King deserved the Presidential Medal of Freedom. Mr Limbaugh did not.

@reformed posted:

You're of course welcome to your views about Dr King, but in this case not without my calling attention to the fact that you've changed the subject. The issue you raised in an earlier post and to which I then responded was that Dr King should be disqualified from Medal of Freedom consideration "if you're going to discredit Limbaugh for things he has said and done." In response, my argument was that Dr King's resume is far better than Mr Limbaugh's because Dr. King didn't make his impact via morally and ethically questionable conduct as Mr Limbaugh has. Your response - that "MLK is over-celebrated" and not "that important" - fails to address my claim. Do you claim that Mr Limbaugh's impact on culture through his radio show has been as constructive as and of comparable moral and spiritual character to Dr King's impact through the civil rights movement? If so, on what basis do you make your claim?

We agree. Thank you for taking the time to offer your comment.

p.s. Mr Trump's history suggests VERY STRONGLY that today's was not the last instance of such inappropriate behavior he'll exhibit between now and election day.

p.p.s. Try to imagine Ronald Reagan, either President Bush, Bill Clinton, or Barack Obama spewing such garbage at a national prayer breakfast as Mr Trump did today. On second thought, don't try; it's not possible to imagine those presidents' doing so.

Examples and links to supporting information, please.

You're undoubtedly talking about the 2015 National Prayer Breakfast in which Mr Obama said of the reality of horrible actions taken by people in the name of their faiths,

Though some in the conservative Christian community issued strong denunciations of the president's comments, as THIS FACT CHECK and any basic knowledge of history demonstrate, every one of Mr Obama's claims was factually, historically accurate. And EVEN IF the president got that "basic history wrong" (which he didn't) no reasonable person would conclude that those three sentences equated in tone or intention to the garbage Donald Trump spewed in his appearance Thursday morning.

Do you have any OTHER examples of what you called Mr Obama's Prayer Breakfast "trash," or is that one - whose credibility to which history is quite unkind - the only one?

Your five word comment doesn't help me understand what you claim Mr Obama got "wrong" with the crusades. Please say more and be specific. Recall, the ONLY thing he said about the Crusades was that in them people "committed terrible deeds in the name of Christ." What specifically do you claim he got wrong in that assertion, and on what do you base your claim?