Did you know that President Obama attended and even eulogized the memorial service for the 29 miners who died in an explosion in West Virginia back in April??!?!? He paid his respects to those 29 citizens BUT COULD NOT MAKE TIME to SPEAK at the memorial service for the 9 BP oil workers!!!! The WORST ECOLOGICAL DISASTER IN U.S. HISTORY!!!! Yeah we can ALL see where your PRIORITIES ARE Mr. President! Please click HERE to read a Washington Post article titled, "President Obama eulogizes 29 W.Va. miners" They even have a video of his speech.
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Fresno Political Buzz Examiner
written by Nicco Capozzi
June 11, 2010 at 2:07pm
FRESNO (examiner.com) - The memorial service for the workers who died as a result of the BP oil spill was held on May 25 in Jackson, Mississippi. President Obama did not attend the service as he was traveling to San Francisco to attend a fundraiser for Senator Barbara Boxer, D-California.
Asked why the President did not attend, Press Secretary Robert Gibbs on Thursday stated, "I'd have to look at the schedule. I don't know the answer."
Not a good initial response to a developing story that could hamper further the President's popularity over his handling of the environmental disaster.
But maybe it is not the responsibility of a President to attend such services for private citizens; maybe such 'special' appearances should be reserved primarily for the ceremonies of our armed service members, not private citizens. That at least would be the traditional thinking.
But isn't Obama supposed to be a 'special' President, at least to the voters who placed him in office? Isn't this President supposed to be Lincolnesque? Yet as Lincoln said, "Public sentiment is everything. With public sentiment, nothing can fail. Without it, nothing can succeed."
It is one thing not to attend the service of the workers, it is quite another thing to make a calculated flight across the country to attend a political fundraiser--especially when the two events coincide at exactly the same time. The President had to choose which one to attend, and he chose poorly. For this decision, public sentiment will further slip from his grasp and consequently the chance of his failure on this issue will rise.
To be fair, the President on Thursday did offer his condolences to the relatives of the 11 workers who were killed in the gulf oil fiasco--the worst environmental disaster in U.S. history. And the President did invite the relatives to the White House.
The President at least got one thing right, he had to make intimate contact with the families at some point. But the President, had he been thinking of the power of public sentiment as Lincoln so unwaveringly strived for, he would have attended the service in May and invited the families to the White House. Aside from the moral obligation to do so, politically it would have been much better.
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