After the cultural explosion in America that celebrated this week’s presidential inauguration, could there be any doubt that this would have been the most-watched inaugural ceremony in history?
It wasn’t. Despite Obama pictures in convenience stores, non-stop television coverage on virtually every broadcast and cable-TV network before, during and after the event, and enough hype and hyperbole to make a Madison Avenue ad executive cringe, President Obama’s inauguration was not the highest-rated presidential inauguration in television history.
That honor goes to President Ronald Reagan’s inauguration in 1981 which drew millions more viewers than President Obama’s (41.8 million versus 37.8, according to Nielsen).
Considering the proliferation of the 24-hour all news channels, in addition to the still-powerful broadcast networks, I think this is a pretty remarkable statistic.
Perhaps there aren’t as many Americans as infatuated with the incoming president as the mainstream media would have us believe.
Score another one for The Gipper.
Meanwhile, the Obama Inauguration featured one of the most vicious displays of racism imaginable, another fact barely covered by the liberal, Obama-worshipping news media.
Who could have imagined that President Obama’s long-time pastor, Jeremiah Wright, was actually going to be a part of the ceremony? One would think that after Obama threw Rev. Wright to the curb when his racist rhetoric from the pulpit was revealed to the world, that he wouldn’t be within a hundred miles of Washington, D.C. this past Tuesday.
But he was there, all right.
He just appeared on the presidential podium in the form of Rev. Joseph Lowery.
Lowery is often described as a “civil rights icon.” I’d love to know what’s iconic about enthusiastically slamming Asians and Whites with a crude, racist poem that passed for part of the “benediction” of the inauguration of the 44th President of the United States.
Help us work for that day…when yellow will be mellow…and when white will embrace what is right.
Some icon.
Perhaps more shocking than his assertion that whites have a propensity to embrace what is wrong and that Asians just need to back off and become mellower was the reaction of the people in attendance, including President Obama.
The crowd roared with laughter and approving applause. And Obama just laughed and grinned from ear to ear while excitedly shaking this bitter, angry man’s hand.
President Obama has already demonstrated that he doesn’t necessarily just mug and smile for the cameras when he is disapproving. His gaffe-prone VP, Joe Biden, was at it again this week, cracking a joke about Supreme Court Chief Justice Roberts’ flubbing of the inaugural oath in front of Obama and reporters.
The President looked like he was ready to strangle Biden with his bare hands.
So I’ve got to believe that if Obama found fault with a bigoted-laced benediction, he wouldn’t have faked his emotions with phony laughter and a fake smile.
No, he seemed to love it.
Help us work for that day…when yellow will be mellow…and when white will embrace what is right.
Of course, it wasn’t just white Americans who were attacked by this embarrassing display of old-school racism. Consider this email from a USA Today reader named Si Van Nguyen on the USA Today website:
“Rev. Lowery’s benediction…ended on a dastardly note. There are rarely any references made of or about Asians in American politic…we are just not on the radar. But for us to hear the first time a reference about Asians made in an inauguration event speech like that is just wrong. I thought that yellows were already pretty mellow. I guess we need to be more mellow for him and people like him to feel better. I am not insulted, just sad for him and people like him and for Obama (who approved the speech).”
Where are the Asian-American activists, I wonder? Years ago I made some reference on my radio show to the cartoon character, “Pokemon”, and whatever I said resulted in a formal letter of condemnation from one such group in California.
One would think a racist rant at a presidential inauguration might warrant as stern a response as something a radio talk show host said about a cartoon character, huh?
Not when it’s a liberal doing the talking. People on the left get a pass when it comes to condemning white Americans. And now, evidently, it’s open season on Asians, too.
Help us work for that day…when white will embrace what is right.
Hey Rev. Lowery: a whole bunch of white Americans just elected the first black American president. Does that count? Perhaps “that day” has arrived.
And like most professional race-baiters, Joseph Lowery didn’t even notice.