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WHAT BARACK OBAMA AND HELEN THOMAS HAVE IN COMMON 6/12/2010 5:31:49 AM
I recently received an e-mail from Barack Obama; paraphrased, this is the essence of it:
During the week of May 30 the President visited Caminada Bay in Grand Isle, Louisiana -- one of the first places to feel the devastation wrought by the horrendous BP oil spill in the Gulf of Mexico. While he was there, at Camerdelle's Live Bait shop, he met with a group of local residents and small business owners.
He talked with many people, some like Floyd Lasseigne, a fourth-generation oyster fisherman. This is the time of year when Floyd says he earns most of his income. “But his oyster beds,” declared Mr. Obama, “have been destroyed by the oil spill.” Consequently, he, his family and his colleagues have fallen on hard times.
Terry Vegas had a similar story. He quit the 8th grade to become a ‘shrimper’ with his grandfather. “Ever since,” the President stated, “he's earned his living during shrimping season -- working long, grueling days so that he could earn enough money to support himself year round. But today, the waters where he has worked are closed. And every day, as the spill worsens, he loses hope that he will be able to return to the life he built.”
This disgusting BP oil spill has not just damaged livelihoods -- it has devastatingly wrecked whole communities. “The fury people feel is not just about the money they have lost,” Mr. Obama went on, “it is about the wrenching recognition that their lives may never be the same.”
The chief executive minced no words. “These people work hard. They meet their responsibilities. But now because of a man-made catastrophe -- one that is not their fault and beyond their control -- their lives have been thrown into turmoil. It is brutally unfair.” And what Mr. Obama emphasized is that he “will stand with the folks of the Gulf Coast until they are again made whole.”
That is why, from the beginning, the Obama administration has worked to deploy every tool at their disposal to respond to this crisis. Today, there are more than 20,000 people working around the clock to contain and clean up this spill. The President has “authorized 17,500 National Guard troops to participate in the response. More than 1,900 vessels are aiding in the containment and cleanup effort.” Since Day Two of the event, all facets of the U.S. military have been involved. Mr. Obama has personally convened hundreds of top scientists and engineers from around the world, and just now he is getting updated reports on the true volume of the spill, contrary to what BP has contended. “This is the largest response to an environmental disaster of this kind in the history of our country,” he said.
The White House has also ordered BP to pay economic injury claims, and during the week of May 30, “the federal government sent BP a preliminary bill for $69 million to pay back American taxpayers for some of the costs of the response so far.” In addition, after an emergency safety review, the President is putting in place aggressive new operating standards for offshore drilling. And he has “appointed a bipartisan commission to look into the causes of this spill. If laws are inadequate, they will be changed. If oversight was lacking, it will be strengthened. And if laws were broken, those responsible will be brought to justice.” According to later declarations, he plans to “find out whose ass to kick!”
These are dire times in Louisiana and across the Gulf Coast, an area that has already seen far more than its fair share of troubles. “The people of this region have met this terrible catastrophe with seemingly boundless strength and character in defense of their way of life. What the federal government owes them is a commitment by our entire nation to match the resilience they have shown.” That is President Obama’s mission. And “it is one my administration will fulfill,” he emphatically promised on the record.
The statements above were said, written and recorded by the President of the United States from his e-mail to me and as reported in major mass media, including the Internet. There are a number of ‘whiners and malingers’ out there who will insist that he has shown no leadership and never said any of these things. They are probably some of the same people who made the following statements:
”I would not live forever, because we should not live forever, because if we were supposed to live forever, then we would live forever, but we cannot live forever, which is why I would not live forever."
"Smoking kills. If you're killed, you've lost a very important part of your life,"
"I've never had major knee surgery on any other part of my body,"
"Outside of the killings, Washington has one of the lowest crime rates in the country,"
"That lowdown scoundrel deserves to be kicked to death by a jackass, and I'm just the one to do it,"
"Half this game is ninety percent mental."
"Whenever I watch TV and see those poor starving kids all over the world, I can't help but cry. I mean I'd love to be skinny like that, but not with all those flies and death and stuff."
"It isn't pollution that's harming the environment. It's the impurities in our air and water that are doing it.."
"I love California. I practically grew up in Phoenix."
"We've got to pause and ask ourselves: How much clean air do we need?"
"The word "genius" isn't applicable in football. A genius is a guy like Norman Einstein."
"We don't necessarily discriminate [in the military.] We simply exclude certain types of people."
"Your food stamps will be stopped effective in March because we received notice that you passed away. May God bless you. You may reapply if there is a change in your circumstances."
"Traditionally, most of Australia 's imports come from overseas."
"If somebody has a bad heart, they can plug this jack in at night as they go to bed and it will monitor their heart throughout the night. And the next morning, when they wake up dead, there'll be a record."
Well-known celebrities, business and sports figures, medical authorities and politicians of both parties made all the above quotes; they were printed verbatim, with accreditation, in the responsible media. You gotta love ‘em!
Come to think of it, former White House correspondent Helen Thomas probably knows specifically who made theses absurd statements, but perhaps at her age they are just vague, dim curiosities. I think I met her once, many years ago, when she was guest speaker at a ‘Saints & Sinners’ affair in Western New York, and I was on the dais with local iconoclast Richard Tobias. I don’t know if Tobias has shuffled off his mortal coil, but I do know Ms. Thomas was recently compelled by her employer to retire over remarks she unwittingly made about Israelis going home and not occupying territory inhabited by others. Her actual statements might have gone unnoticed had she not mentioned Poland and Germany, but unfortunately, people 90 years old often say things that are ludicrous -- even if they themselves would abhor such ideas emanating from the lips of younger folks.
Politicians, like members of the Fifth Estate of any age, sometimes say things they later wish they could erase, and our presidents, congressmen, governors, assemblymen, legislators, judges et al are no exceptions. But Barack Obama and Helen Thomas transcend the teeming masses because they, nearly alone in Washington, somehow instinctively know the subtle but vast differences between altruism and charity, unalienable and civil rights.
But, alas, I am broaching a subject for another time.
