That Really Grinds My Gears
You know what really grinds my gears? Partisan hacks who attack members of the other party based on nonsensical and silly things that really do not matter in the grand scheme of things. Both Republicans and Democrats are guilty of this. The most recent example of partisan stupidity came when President Obama wore a traditional Chinese outfit to the 2014 Asia-Pacific Economic Cooperation (APEC) Summit, which was hosted by China. President Obama wasn’t the only attendee to dress like this. All of the participants wore the same outfit. In fact, the APEC Summit has a longstanding tradition of attendees wearing traditional clothing that represents the host country. In case you missed it, here is the outfit from this year’s APEC Summit:
To Americans, the outfit may look a little silly. Does it look little like something Dr. Evil would wear? Maybe. Does it look like something out of Star Trek? Yes. It’s okay to point these things out and get a little laugh. I have seen people joke that President Obama is missing his communicator pin. Others have said that the participants in the group photo look like they are about to be beamed up. Heck, the other day I made a comment that “at least they didn’t give him the red shirt.” Anyone who is a Star Trek fan will get the reference that those who wore the red shirts were the ones to get killed off. Statements like these are all in good fun.
However, I have to draw the line at people who attacked the president and his character based on the outfit. Here are a few examples of attacks that I have seen throughout my Facebook and Twitter feeds over the past few days:
- He looks like a Communist dictator.
- How un-American!
- What a disgrace! I can’t believe that he would wear something like this and on Veteran’s Day no less!
- Obama is a disgrace to our troops.
- Ronald Reagan never would have worn something like this.
- Ted Cruz would never wear something like this.
- No real American would ever wear something like this.
Seriously? Do we have nothing better on which to attack the president other than his outfit? I even saw one post to someone referring to his outfit as “Kenyan.” Kenya? As mentioned before, it is tradition for participants to wear the cultural outfits of the host nation. So is this any less American?:
How about this one? Is this un-American?
Does this one embarrass the troops?
The fact is that there are a lot of issues on which we can attack President Obama. There are much more important issues such as the looming national debt, net neutrality, Common Core, immigration reform, the escalation of troops in the Middle East, the handling of the economy, Obamacare, etc., etc., etc. So let’s focus on the policy debate and leave the silly personal attacks behind. We may be able to accomplish more. And that, folks, is what really grinds my gears.
Just in good fun, I leave you with this picture of Ronald Reagan wearing a poncho and sombrero:
