# Can someone explain why it is controversial that Obama hugged Derrick Bell? **URL:** \ **Category:** Politics & Elections\ **Created:** [March 8, 2012, 12:26pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/can-someone-explain-why-it-is-controversial-that-obama-hugged-derrick-bell/615140 "2012-03-08T12:26:54Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 1\ **Showing post:** 121
**Author:** ![SlackerInc](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/slackerinc/32/275_2.png) [@SlackerInc](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/SlackerInc)\ **Post date:** [March 11, 2012, 4:33am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/can-someone-explain-why-it-is-controversial-that-obama-hugged-derrick-bell/615140/121 "2012-03-11T04:33:35Z")
> [@JQPublic](#): > > everything is costing me more. I want to zero in on this because I keep hearing complaints about inflation, especially from Ron Paul supporters. Do you realise that you can’t find a three and a half year period during the previous (Bush) administration with lower inflation than has occurred during the Obama presidency? And I don’t buy your line that this is why you’re not voting to re-elect Obama. I don’t believe you voted for him in 2008, or that he ever really had a chance to earn your vote. Which is fine, by the way: I voted in my first presidential election in 1988, and I have yet to vote any way but Democratic and can’t imagine that will ever change, even if there’s a Republican president running for reelection in a booming economy or whatever. But just own it, and don’t try to play that disingenuous game, please. > [@JQPublic](#): > > I do believe he belongs to a group of elitists (made up of democrats and republicans) who would like to socialize America but are smart enough to know that they have to do it in small pieces. I would actually agree with that, though I will never understand why so many people are so resistant to the idea of being “socialized” that we do have to take those baby steps. If I thought it was politically feasible, I’d be all for going straight to a system like Sweden’s or Norway’s, ASAP, no hesitation whatsoever. But you’re right: too many Americans are ridiculously suspicious of going in that direction, so we have to be careful not to get them riled up. We’ll get there eventually though! > [@JQPublic](#): > > President Obama’s 2012 State of the Union address again rated at an 8th grade comprehension level on the Flesch-Kincaid readability test — the third lowest score of any State of the Union address since 1934. > > The University of Minnesota’s Smart Politics conducted an analysis on the last 70 State of the Union addresses and found that President Obama’s three addresses have the lowest grade average of any modern president. “Obama’s average grade-level score of 8.4 is more than two grades lower than the 10.7 grade average for the other 67 addresses written by his 12 predecessors,” they conclude. > > Not talking down to us eh? Ha–as Gyrate noted, it’s pretty ironic to accuse him of being “elitist” because his speeches use simpler vocabulary. The guy can’t win with you no matter which way he goes. > [@Marley23](#): > > I don’t remember hearing that, but from a journalistic point of view, it’s not satisfactory. Sure, from a journalistic POV, I agree. But getting to the truth about the president should be more important than The Trial of Dan Rather in the Court of Public Opinion or whatever. And that’s what I mean: once conservatives had blood in the water, they managed to get all the focus on those documents. The fact that you never heard about what the secretary said is exactly the point: the GOP got really lucky that Rather and the fake documents became the story, instead of Bush’s Guard service. I mean, I hope you’d agree that if Bush is actually guilty of what he is charged with in those documents, any malfeasance by Rather or CBS doesn’t actually make Bush magically innocent! Yet I’m the only one I’ve ever met who remembers this important aspect of the story. Anyway, here’s an article about it: > **[THE 2004 CAMPAIGN: NATIONAL GUARD; Memos on Bush Are Fake But Accurate,...](https://www.nytimes.com/2004/09/15/us/the-2004-campaign-national-guard-memos-on-bush-are-fake-but-accurate.html)** > > Marian Carr Knox, secretary for George W Bush's squadron at Texas air base from 1957 to 1979, says she never typed documents in which late Lt Col Jerry B Killian criticizes Bush's conduct and believes they are fakes put together from originals,... > [@](#): > > HOUSTON, Sept. 14 - The secretary for the squadron commander purported to be the author of now-disputed memorandums questioning President Bush’s service in the Texas Air National Guard said Tuesday that she never typed the documents and believed that they are fakes. > > But she also said they accurately reflect the thoughts of the commander, Lt. Col. Jerry B. Killian, and other memorandums she typed for him about Mr. Bush. “The information in them is correct,” the woman, Marian Carr Knox, now 86, said in an interview at her home here. "But I doubt,‘’ she said, pausing, “it’s not anything that I wrote because there are terms in there that are not used by Guards, the format wasn’t the way we did it. It looks like someone may have read the originals and put that together.” --- _[View the full topic](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/can-someone-explain-why-it-is-controversial-that-obama-hugged-derrick-bell/615140)._