Another Teachable Moment

 

So Barack Hussein Obama thinks it more important to go on a talk show with some of the most vapid ‘talents’ to waste pixels since Britney Spears had a show than to go to the Boy Scouts’ Centennial Jamboree.  Is it news worthy?

Only if you think about how it demonstrates his priorities.

On the former, he can field softballs from a friendly panel who would much rather joke and giggle with him than ask a difficult question about the many failures of his adminstration or push him to denounce the tired tactic of his defenders and enablers of “Blame Bush!”  nearly two years after taking the job he so desperately asked us to give him.

At the latter, he is likely to come face-to-face with people of all hues and creeds who focused on achievement and learning all the things that they can do, rather than wallowing in the conviction of all the things they are sure that they can’t do (even if they never tried).  He will come face to face-to-face with people of all hues and creeds who make the daily attempt to adhere to a code that doesn’t have room for cynicism or the petty divisions that politicians cleverly manipulate in an attempt to increase their own power.  At the latter, he would come face-to-face with people who believe in voluntarily giving service to their communities, not out of a tangled belief in collective salvation, but because they understand their faith enough to know that such service is a betterment to themselves personally, and is the real root of charity.  And finally, he would come to face-to-face with people who believe in right and wrong in personal behavior, and are willing to take a stand regarding those beliefs, rather than bow to political expediency.

Knowing this, I understand his choice completely, and I find it unsurprising.  If I were him, I wouldn’t want to be spending time with boys, young men, and their elders, any one of whom demonstrate more character on their absolute worst days than this shallow shell of a man who has left a trail of friends and associates in his wake so that the electorate doesn’t think too hard about birds of a feather flocking together.  That would have to be singularly uncomfortable. 

I know some conservatives and former scouts who are upset that the President of the United States will not lend the prestige of his office to a celebration of an American Institution.  I myself have mixed feelings about this.  While I regret that the current occupant of the Oval Office cannot suck it up, take a break from his perpetual vacation, and try to inspire young men and boys to aspire to such lofty goals, I find that I am glad that he has once again chosen what is easy over what is right.  If the boys cannot have such an honored guest who demonstrates many of the morals that are the product of the code they live by, then I would honestly prefer that they didn’t have to endure one who clearly cannot. 

And while I too, was a scout, and still try to live up to that code, I fear that their grace and respect is simply more than he deserves.

Crossposted at Taxes, Stupidity, and Death.