WASHINGTON, D.C. (YBH) – Last year, the AP reported that “Obama laid a wreath at the Tomb of the Unknowns at Arlington National Cemetery, a customary presidential undertaking on Memorial Day.” Not this year. Mr. Obama will not be at Arlington this year.
Is the President missing the Memorial Day ceremony because he is knee deep in oil in the Gulf of Mexico? No. The President is on vacation in Chicago this weekend.
The last time a President missed the ceremonies at Arlington on Memorial Day was 2002 when President Bush spent the day in Normandy at the American Cemetery before attending a NATO summit in Rome. The time before that was 1992.
President Bush speaks at Arlington National Cemetery on Memorial Day in 2008.
Of the recent President’s, Bill Clinton went all eight years of his Presidency. George H.W. Bush, who served in WW II and almost lost his life in the conflict, never went (he did fill in for Ronald Reagan in 1981, however). George W. Bush went every year except 2002 as noted above.
There is no NATO summit or anything like it in Chicago this week. The President just doesn’t feel like going to Arlington this year. Whether that is actually the case or not doesn’t matter, but it is the image getting through to the American people.
Anne E. Kornblut and Ed O’Keefe wrote a piece in the Washington Post downplaying the President’s must-miss of Arlington this year. They claim that “Critics — mainly conservatives” are upset that Obama is missing the event. Notice the “mainly conservatives” line. That is a wink to the WaPo faithful to say “only those nasty right-wingers care about this stuff and will use it to gain political points with the gun and Bible clingers.” Many Democrats may disagree with that notion.
The real bias, and downright bad reporting, of the Washington Post article comes later in the article (emphasis ours):
Obama is not the first president to miss the Arlington ceremony. Ronald Reagan spoke at West Point one year, and went to his California ranch another year. George H.W. Bush, a war veteran, did not go at all. Bill Clinton, who did not serve in Vietnam and had a rocky time with the military, went to Arlington all eight years, and George W. Bush, who also avoided combat service in Vietnam, attended from 2003 onward.
The Washington Post combines two Memorial Day ceremonies into one in terms of their reporting during the Reagan era. The year was 1981. The President had been shot by a Socialist Democrat, um er Nazi reject, six weeks earlier and was recuperating in Santa Barbara. The President made a choice to skip the event so he could be present and ready to give the commencement address at West Point two days later. President Reagan spent the Memorial Day weekend in 1987 at Camp David and did miss the event that year. That is the example WaPo could have used to calm its core audience into believing that Mr. Obama isn’t doing anything wrong or out of the ordinary.
The problem for President Obama missing the events at Arlington this early in his Presidency, is that he is, step by step, building the reputation as a leader out of touch with the general populace of the country he governs. He is still loved by the left inside the beltway, but is ever more widely seen as aloof and uncaring by much of the country. Skipping Arlington cemetery for some vacation time (granted, he will lay a wreath and speak at the Lincoln Cemetery in Illinois) is a mistake and will just add to that image.
Regardless of how the symbiotically linked Washington press tries to ignore Mr. Obama’s mistake, the country won’t miss it. With the oil spill continuing in the Gulf of Mexico and Mr. Obama’s approval ratings sinking ever lower (at least by the Obama standard), the President can use all of the positive press he can muster.
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John Romano is the publisher and editor of Yes, But However!, a musician, a former political correspondent for BBC Radio London, and a serial web entrepreneur. Follow him on twitter: twitter.com/yesbuthowever or John Romano on Google+John Romano article archive.
