Well, I’m sure that the part I’ve bolded is still true. And it’s something they’re not likely to forget soon, either.
And the crowd roars “Show us your tits!”. I would have been so proud. America! Fuck, yeah!
Sure, there are events that common courtesy dictates one should invite the President to. The only real course of action here is to suspend Jamborees and ship commissionings for a little while.
Might not even be for that long.
The BSA having a nonpartisan position essentially forced them to accept Trump as a speaker, because rejecting him would have immediately painted them as liberals with a mind to corrupt the impressionable youth under their command. And being nonpartisan also prevents them from tearing into the president for similar reasons. Aside from reaffirming that, no really, they’re not the Hitler Youth, there’s not much they can do.
The Girl Scouts aren’t inviting him any time soon, at least. Grab 'em by …
Can/should they refrain from inviting him back?
Andy Borowitz is reporting that they have obtained a restraining order…
I’m an Eagle Scout and a former Scoutmaster. I haven’t seen Trump’s speech, but for me personally, it doesn’t seem like a big deal. I don’t expect I’ll take the time to dig up a video of his speech and listen to it.
I did provide a link to a bit of it in the OP, y’know.
Really, might you provide some examples?! I heard some excerpts where he bashed Barky, asking the crowd whether he had ever deigned to appear, resulting in a thunderous “Nein!” er, “No!” but maybe the right wing media excised the Aryan supremacy bits, calling out of the dirty Jews, and need for Lebensraum. Thanks for the warning though, I’ll never look at the Pinewood Derby the same, ever again.
Yeah, I cilcked it. It looked like some HuffPo mashup rather than the speech itself.
Jambo only happens every 4 years, so unless he’s re-elected it’s a moot question.
Speaking as an Eagle Scout and current scouter - I haven’t watched or read a transcript of the speech. (In fairness, I haven’t watched the speeches Bush or Obama made to Jambo either, since I haven’t had the opportunity to go to Jambo myself). As far as I can tell, it was a typical Trump speech - which is to say, entirely inappropriate for a non-partisan group of teens.
BSA was in a tough spot. The BSA’s charter comes from the US Congress. POTUS is the honorary President of the organization. The POTUS is invited to come give a speech at every Jamboree the BSA has held. Not all of them came (Reagan infamously snubbed the scouts) and not all came in person (Obama sent a recording). But pretty much every speech made by a President at Jambo was your usual “yay America, go public service, Scout Oath and Law are good ideals, bla bla bla”. Presumably Trump has advisers that would have told him to make it a “Go Citizenship” speech. If BSA hadn’t invited him, they would have looked overly political.
The blame for this is entirely on Trump. (Of course, this is the same guy that got booed at the Al Smith dinner for ragging on Hillary). I’ve read elsewhere that BSA National’s phone lines are jammed with all the people complaining. The message boards I read on scouting are 80% “WTF was Trump thinking”, 10% “Why did we invite him anyway”, and 10% “But he’s the president you whiny libtards” (The latter two usually get scolded by the rest of the posters IME). The scouters I know that are at Jambo are either “well, it’s an honor to hear the president speak no matter who it is”, “Wow there’s more security than I thought” and “That was a little… over-the-top for a speech to the scouts”.
I don’t blame BSA national for continuing the tradition of having a standing invitation to the POTUS to come to Jambo. Trump was idiotic about it. It’s disappointing but not surprising.
Here’s the full speech:
Here you go. The link is to the press release/transcript from the White House.
Son of a bitch-Right off the bat he attacks the fourth estate twice, then he lies about how he wasn’t going to go the policy-fight route.
According to that OFFICIAL transcript, everybody applauded at the appropriate places, and said the right encouraging words, and said boo when he mentioned his opponents(making it seem as if they were booing his opponents and not him). This whitehouse-washed document makes it look like the BSA actively supports their Prez.
I’m not in a position to watch the video right now. Are there points in the video where you think the crowd is booing the President? Where there wasn’t applause where the White House transcript said there was?
I’m a Former Eagle scout who attended in National Jamboree in 1989.
The speech was entirely inappropriate for the venue. If ever there was a time for innocuous pablum this was it. All he had to do was say how proud he was of the scouts, how great America is, and how you should reach for the stars.
Here is atranscriptof the speech.
If you took out all the parts highlighted in yellow it probably would have been ok, and he probably could probably could have gotten away with one quick jab as a bit of a joke, but this speech is half political, and largely negative. Commenting on crowd size in particular is a off base, given the fact that all those in attendance were basically forced to be there, and presumably given strict instructions by their leaders not to disrespect the president.
That said I have no problem with how BSA handled it. To do otherwise would have brought even more controversy. Its traditional to have the president give a speech at the end of the Jamboree, so not inviting Trump would be a political act. Also one of the values promoted by the boy Scouts is patriotism and respect for authority, so calling out the sitting president after this speech would be a major change in policy. Distancing themselves from him is probably the best they could do.
Do you think there are any venues in which politicians should refrain from taking potshots at their adversaries?
Yeah, and this was one of them. It was inappropriate. But our current president’s strong suit is definitely not “finding the appropriate thing to say”. He says all sorts of inappropriate things. Most of them aren’t terribly significant or important. This strikes me as another one of those.