Tuesday, June 22, 2010

Interrupting Father's Day

Jonathan Chait has a rather humorous post at his New Republic blog about the reaction to President Obama's fatherhood initiative. Here's the beginning:

Most everything associated with President Obamahis policy platform, his public style, his personal storyhave become grist for intense partisan conflict. I had thought that the one remaining uncontroversial scrap was his endorsement of fatherhood, which he has been doing periodically since he appeared on the public scene. But even this can now spur outrage, at least by Ira Stoll, who has attracted a lot of attention with a column denouncing Obama's fatherhood initiative:
President Obama interrupted my Father's Day with an e-mail announcing the launch of "The President's Fatherhood and Mentoring Initiative" ...So I ignored my children for a few minutes of Father's Day and did what the president asked which was to check out the Web site, and especially the government's "Tips for Parents." They were infuriating.
I'm no technological wizard, so I am not sure how an email "interrupted Father's Day." I have one of those email systems that you only read when you want to check email. Perhaps Stoll has his email set up to buzz loudly every time a message arrives, and he hasn't figured out how to disable the feature. I would suggest that, if the arrival of an email is going to interrupt Father's Day, try leaving your computer or smart phone off, or in a different room. (I thought about emailing this suggestion to Stoll, but I worried the message might interrupt his sleep.)

Heh, heh. You really have to wonder about these people, don't you? According to them, Barack Obama just can't do anything right. Democrats didn't do this to George W. Bush in his early years in office - not until we got the invasion of an innocent country, torture, and everything else that made his administration such a blight on our nation. But for Obama, this sort of thing began before he even took office, and it's just become more and more hysterical since.

Anyway, check out the rest of the post. It's pretty good (especially the part where muting TV commercials is un-American!).

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