True. But as a politician, a United States Senator, I expect him to know the proper protocol for greeting the President of Brundi, introducing a resolution on the Senate floor, and rendering honors during the anthem.
Which he does.
And the lack of a grade-school intro to the latter subject is probably a good way to explain his one-instance failure to do the latter. If he were making a conscious choice to not place his hand over his heart during the anthem, I’d be disturbed; as it is, I’m perfectly satisfied that one instance of forgetting to do so is utterly meaningless.
Reagan explained this, actually. He felt a salute ought to be returned, just as he did when he was in the Army (he made training films for the War Department, but it was something.) And since he was President, nobody told him he couldn’t.
All Presidents since have returned salutes, which I think is a nice thing, personally.
Another one ignorant of military protocols, but if the President is expected not to return a salute, the soldier shouldn’t be expected to give one in the first place. It’s like ignoring a hand held out for a handshake.
Well, protocol has always stated that soldiers salute the president. The change Reagan made was returning the salute.
And while I do approve, as I said, I don’t think soldiers before this got bent out of shape. They saluted the flag as well, and didn’t expect any sort of return from that.
Everybody here is ignoring the most recent Obama lie. Apparently Obama said Monday that his uncle helped to liberate Auschwitz when the truth is that he helped to liberate Buchenwald. A liar like that is clearly unsuited to be POTUS!
Well, first off, have you any great-uncles, and how do you refer to them? I had several, I called them “Uncle”. Had two Uncle Johns (due to the prevalence in my native culture to name males after John Wesley…) If necessary, one was Old Uncle John, the other, just Uncle John. Not only is that not particularly surprising, its not even interesting.
As to location, its a pity Barack did not inquire of his uncle more forcefully, perhaps an affidavit was called for, so we might be sure exactly what outpost of Hell he was referring to. But divining some calculating intent to it is an exercise for aspiring paranoids.
I agree, the Uncle vs. Great-Uncle isn’t interesting. But the Ohrdruf>Buchenwald>Auschwitz transformation is. No one has ever heard of Ohdruf, and not so many Americans are familiar with Buchenwald, so he went with Auschwitz, instead. Not very truthy, that.
He probably heard the story the way most kids hear stories of their elders’ exploits. Family lore is frequently garbled, particularly on irrelevant details.
Barring evidence that he deliberately changed the name, any claim that his statement was a “lie,” as opposed to simply misremembered family history or a rhetorical change to make a speech work better is nonsense.
And, of course, since Ohrdruf was a satellite camp of Buchenwald, any claim that he was lying about Buchenwald is, itself, a lie. (The majority of the large camps were not single sites but collections of smaller sites administered from–and remembered under the name of–the larger camp.) A claim that liberating Ohrdruf was not the same as liberating Buchenwald would be just as stupid as claiming that liberating Birkenau was different than liberating Auschwitz.
Then why didn’t he say Buchenwald to start with? Maybe he “misremembered”. :rolleyes:
What about the 57 states that Mr. Obama campaigned in? Did he “misremember” the number of U.S. states, as well? That’s a First Grade Geography Question on “Are you smarter than a fifth grader?”
Do people really, honestly think that Barack Obama doesn’t know how many states there are?
This morning the ER doc told me that “everybody in Perry County came to the in the ER last night”. They couldn’t have had more than a hundred patients or so, at the most, and the population of our county is 30,000. Was he lying to me? Or was he using a little rhetorical flourish called hyperbole?
(Alternately, it could be that he has campaigned in 50 states, but he has given 110% in each of them. (114%, to be exact.) )
I’m curious as to what you think the alternatives are. As I see it, he either (i) misremembered, (ii) misspoke, or (iii) was actually trying to deceive.
Now, (i) is unlikely, I agree. But do you think he was trying to deceive you? Do you actually think he was trying to pull something over on you or other people by saying this?
Is there some weird confidence game I’m unaware of? As in,
[ul]
[li]Claim there are 57 states[/li][li]???[/li][li]Profit?[/li][/ul]
Are underpants involved?
