Anyone Else Notice This?

Yesterday, I happened to catch Obama and McCain visiting the 9/11 site. I watched as they presented their roses and noted that Obama just tossed his while John and Cindy McCain bent over and somberly placed theirs. Perhaps they were faking, but the McCains showed the respect and dignity the event deserved.



Maybe I'm overreacting here, but if Obama's big problem is that we need to negotiate with people, he certainly has a lot to learn about the small things that can cause difficulties in building relationships. Showing respect and offering words of comfort at somber events is a thing the President does a lot. (And, something I believe George W. Bush did quite well.)

Also, if you are going to pride yourself on your ability to negotiate with foreign leaders, you need to watch your mouth. Obviously, you can't call someone a pig, but even if you didn't mean to call someone a pig and it accidentally sounded like you did, you don't stand up the next day and tell the world that the person it sounded like you called a pig, but didn't mean to call a pig, is just being too picky.

Instead, you say, "Yesterday, while speaking off the cuff, I accidentally used an analogy using the words "lipstick" and "pig". Wait for laugh and then say, "I was referring to some policies that I thought were the same old thing in disguise. I was horrified to learn later that some believed I was referring to the Republican VP candidate. I was not and am so sorry and feel so strongly about keeping this campaign focused on the issues that I wanted to start the day making the clarification."

I'll bet he would have gone up two per cent in the polls if he had said that. Instead, he demonstrated to the world his inability to reach across the aisle and also his ungentlemanliness.