The ridiculous Obama umbrella "scandal" has been pretty thoroughly debunked by The Atlantic, by The Atlantic again, by The Washington Post, and, most memorably, by Wonkette's Rebecca Schoenkopf, who enlists her ex-Marine brother to explain, with many appropriate obscenities, that a Marine must follow any order issued issued by his commander in chief ASAFP. In the first Atlantic post, please note the military uniform on the umbrella holder in the second picture of George H.W. Bush.
I'll just add a couple more examples for the record.
LBJ, as president, had an umbrella held for him by an Air Force General, James U. Cross, according to Cross's own memoir:
Cross, later promoted to brigadier general, was LBJ's Air Force One pilot; more about him here, and about his memoir here.
And there's this, from a 1932 story about President Herbert Hoover attending an Easter sunrise ceremony at Arlington National Cemetery:
So, yes, servicemembers hold umbrellas if presidents ask.
19 comments:
That was a good shot at the press: sorry for you.
Damn good shot.
No fear.
OY!
I've said it before, and it's worth saying again, I Obama walked on water, the criticism would be, "Yeah. But that's 'cause that n*gger's too lazy to swim - or doesn't know how, and too stupid to learn."
Hint to Republicans:
Not EVERY thing is a scandal!
You want to see scandal?
Let me give you scandal.
MAKE THAT PLURAL - SCANDALS!!!
For REAL scandals, let's take a look at your W.
Ignoring warnings of imminent attacks.
Lying this nation into war, over falsified info about WMD's.
Torture.
Rendition.
Katrina.
Schiavo.
Re/Depression, due to deregulation - and there's MORE.
We'll be paying for that shithead's, and his evil side-kick's, Dick's, mistakes for generations.
Stop PROJECTING!
How about you just STFU, and let the adults fix the economy, and create some jobs.
You guys are the genital herpes of political parties.
Scratch that - you give genital herpes a GOOD name!
You evil assclowns are the festering postule on the anus of humanity.
Yes, because a member of the American Armed Forces shielding the Commander-in-Chief from rain is SUCH A FUCKING OUTRAGE!
Thanks again for proving J.S. Mill correct once again, Dennis.
Why so many right-wing trolls here lately? Koch funding for the summer trolling jobs finally came through, hunh?
Dennis,
Project, much?
And I never said everyone was "evil" - just "Dicky Does Death" Cheney.
You're not evil.
Maybe stupid.
Maybe ignorant.
Maybe both. Like W himself.
Btw, Dennis, you don't need your tent, O2 tanks, and a Sherpa guide - if you didn't need them during W's Everest(s) of scandals, then you certainly don't need them for any of these molehills your side calls "scandals."
This all, as Jon Stewart calls it, part of "Bullshit Mountain."
Who knew that Dennis was a media critic?
Maybe you should submit a resume to The Daily Beast, Dennis. Howie got his sorry ass fired.
Dennis,
I appreciate the kind words.
Thank you.
And if it's all a crap sandwich, then "We the people" have become used to eating it - starting with LBJ and the Gulf of Tonkin, if not before. And definitely, with Nixon.
And Bush never let 'things get away from him' in his second term, because he was never in control of things in the first place.
If anything, he never was anything more than a figurehead, until Condi convinced him that listening to Cheney and Rummie had led him down the wrong path - and that was the only thing good that happened, because I suspect the other two were desperate for any excuse to go after, and into, Iran.
And there may be some serious issues with the IRS situation, but again, it's nothing W didn't do, when he called for the NAACP, Green Peace, and a church in CA, be investigated for criticizing him.
The MSM said nothing.
They also didn't say anything when W's administration asked the NY Times to sit on some stories. Or that The Patriot Act basically opened-up the sluice gates for the government to listen to everyone - included those with press passes.
Now it's true that, yes, I expect a hell of a lot more from Obama, than I ever did out of Bush.
And, if any of these 3 things turn out to be directly tied to him, then I'll be the right there to criticize him.
And if you're read me here, or in other places, you know I've been critical of Obama before, and will be again.
But these situations are not - at least, not yet, full-blown legitimate scandals.
My main problem is that when a Democrat is President, the Republicans and their buddies in the MSM want to attach the suffix, "gate,' to any and every thing that happens, excepting the bowel-movements of the First Family.
Let's see how things play out.
Then, if impeachment is called for, so be it.
But not every mole-hill that FOX and Rush, and DeMint, and the Koch Brothers. want to be a mountain, is actually, a mountain.
Best of luck to you, too.
Rosie O'Donnell? Hey, Dennis, 2004 called -- it wants its right-wing talking points back.
Nice catch, Steve!
That reference he made went right over my thick, hairless, head.
Wow! A white dog called me racist! Is there a widget for my website!?
Misogynist? That's a new one. I'm not sure it means what it thinks it means.
No fear.
Dennis, respond to the post that Steve made, not the one you wish he made.
Tell us why anyone should get excited about Obama having a Marine shield him from inclement weather.
Should've used Ellen, Dennis, she's still on the air, Rosie got cancelled more than a year ago. Would it kill you to update your talking points once in a while?
Here's my post that Dennis edited:
11. The results may have been imperfect, but our intentions were noble. (Invading Iraq may have resulted in tens of thousands of dead and wounded and millions of refugees, but we meant well.)
12. We have to do things like this to maintain our credibility. You don't want to encourage those bad guys, do you?
13. Especially because the only language the other side understands is force.
14. In fact, it was imperative to teach them a lesson. For the Nth time.
15. If we hadn't done this to them they would undoubtedly have done something even worse to us. Well, maybe not. But who could take that chance?
16. In fact, no responsible government could have acted otherwise in the face of such provocation.
17. Plus, we had no choice. What we did may have been awful, but all other policy options had failed and/or nothing else would have worked.
18. It's a tough world out there and Serious People understand that sometimes you have to do these things. Only ignorant idealists, terrorist sympathizers, craven appeasers and/or treasonous liberals would question our actions.
19. In fact, whatever we did will be worth it eventually, and someday the rest of the world will thank us.
20. We are the victims of a double-standard. Other states do the same things (or worse) and nobody complains about them. What we did was therefore permissible.
21. And if you keep criticizing us, we'll get really upset and then we might do something really crazy. You don't want that, do you?
Why do you lie about stuff that is easy to disprove, Dennis? Are you running a graduate seminar on the concept of falsifiability?
I linked to your weirdo/obsessive blog, DA, for anyone to read your entire list.
Is that why you edited #11, Dennis, and you CYA with a link?
There was no edit there
From your comment, above.
11. The results may have been imperfect, but our intentions were noble.
....................
11:28 AM
From my website:
11. The results may have been imperfect, but our intentions were noble. (Invading Iraq may have resulted in tens of thousands of dead and wounded and millions of refugees, but we meant well.)
To paraphrase the late Groucho Marx in one of his movies, what are we to believe, you or our lying eyes.
You're not very smart, Dennis.
You still haven't explained why a post from my website is relevant to the question of whether our POTUS is worthy of protection from the rain by a member of the American Armed Force.
As much as I hate to bring this up it's a bit of a screw fest. It has to do with various service rules.
A Marine is not allowed to hold an umbrella in his dress uniform and some others. A female Marine is. The Air Force, Navy, and Army do not have these same exact rules.
Now this is a stupid rule, and has lead to all sorts of hilarious situations with Marines standing there in the pouring rain while grieving widows get rained on at funerals, where the Army doesn't have exactly the same rules. But it is one of the Marines unique rules that other services laugh at them for. It's also a comedic site on bases with male Navy officers rushing about with an umbrella while Marine officers are soaked to the bone.
Is it a scandal, nope it's pretty fucking stupid all around and as a former service member (Navy though worked with Marines all the time) it makes me laugh about all the stupid bullshit we had to deal with, stuff that most civilians are utterly ignorant about it. And I think it highlights a stupid policy that the USMC should shit can.
However all that aside, had he asked anything other than a male Marine, this wouldn't be anything. But since it was that it's more of a "LOL Marine Corps" than anything else.
Parentheses-gate! Impeach!
The parenthesis was in the original article I quoted from, Dennis. You left it out, as is apparent to anyone who doesn't have their mind clouded by conservatism.
Put down the angel dust and get back to production, Dennis, and have a good life.
So? I chose to leave it out for brevity, still having linked to it for anyone to see.
I thought you earlier stated that you didn't edit it, Dennis, now you're copping to it.
And you linked to the original, who you copied and pasted from. And then you act like you were wronged because I didn't list all 21 items in their entirety....on someone else's blog.
Nope, you were just incomplete on #11 because why?
For Christ's sakes, what is your deal?
You didn't 'edit' it, you left it out 'for brevities' sake'.
This is your brain on conservatism.
Any questions?
Putting in what was in parentheses would not have added or retracted from the main point, which was your hypocrisy.
Sorry, Dennis, you keep changing your story. If it wouldn't have mattered, why not include it? It's not like you're donating to Steve and helping pay for the cost of this cite.
Seriously, what is your issue with it not being reprinted?
My issue is that you're an idiot who has refused to address the subject of this thread, preferring to dig up something from my blog that you can 'use against me'.
It wasn't your work in the first place, but you're acting as if you've been ripped off, and whining like a 5 year old.
Well, Dennis, if there is something you're an expert in, it's whining like a 5 year old.
Have a good life if you can, Mr. Schlacter.
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