When You Cannot Be Genuinely Decent in Your Own Right — Point to Someone Who Is and Implicitly and Vicariously Claim His Courage and Fortitude as Your Own — President Obama’s Cynical Use of Maimed Army Ranger Sergeant Cory Remsburg — as an Applause Prop at the 2014 State of the Union Speech

© 2014 Peter Free

 

29 January 2014

 

 

America’s politicians too often survive by misdirecting our attention away from their sins of venality and stupidity

 

A wise person recognizes when he and she are being manipulated in someone else’s self-interest.

 

Take President Obama’s use of the horrendously wounded U.S. Army Ranger, Sergeant 1st Class Cory Remsburg, as an applause prop at the State of the Union speech last night.  Blown up, during his tenth deployment.

 

The President said the following with a straight face — (extracts):

 

 

My fellow Americans, no other country in the world does what we do.  On every issue, the world turns to us, not simply because of the size of our economy or our military might – but because of the ideals we stand for, and the burdens we bear to advance them.

 

No one knows this better than those who serve in uniform.

 

Let me tell you about one of those families I’ve come to know.

 

I first met Cory Remsburg, a proud Army Ranger, at Omaha Beach on the 65th anniversary of D-Day.  Along with some of his fellow Rangers, he walked me through the program – a strong, impressive young man, with an easy manner, sharp as a tack.  We joked around, and took pictures, and I told him to stay in touch.

 

A few months later, on his tenth deployment, Cory was nearly killed by a massive roadside bomb in Afghanistan. His comrades found him in a canal, face down, underwater, shrapnel in his brain.

 

For months, he lay in a coma.  The next time I met him, in the hospital, he couldn’t speak; he could barely move.  Over the years, he’s endured dozens of surgeries and procedures, and hours of grueling rehab every day.

 

Even now, Cory is still blind in one eye.  He still struggles on his left side.  But slowly, steadily, with the support of caregivers like his dad Craig, and the community around him, Cory has grown stronger. Day by day, he’s learned to speak again and stand again and walk again – and he’s working toward the day when he can serve his country again.

 

“My recovery has not been easy,” he says. “Nothing in life that’s worth anything is easy.”

 

Cory is here tonight.  And like the Army he loves, like the America he serves, Sergeant First Class Cory Remsburg never gives up, and he does not quit.

 

My fellow Americans, men and women like Cory remind us that America has never come easy.

 

Our freedom, our democracy, has never been easy.  Sometimes we stumble; we make mistakes; we get frustrated or discouraged.

 

But for more than two hundred years, we have put those things aside and placed our collective shoulder to the wheel of progress – to create and build and expand the possibilities of individual achievement; to free other nations from tyranny and fear; to promote justice, and fairness, and equality under the law, so that the words set to paper by our founders are made real for every citizen.

 

Believe it.

 

God bless you, and God bless the United States of America.

 

© 2014 Barack Obama, President Barack Obama's State of the Union Address, Whitehouse (28 January 2014) (extracts)

 

 

The sight of a maimed, uniformed representative of America’s best — standing, virtually alone in that entourage of metaphorically porky connivers would have been enough to turn my stomach

 

However, the President intentionally made his hypocrisy worse by recognizing Sergeant Remsburg’s sacrifice — but without explaining why the loss of critical parts of his brain and anatomy had been necessary.

 

Indeed, the President seemed to want his take-away message to be that, if Sgt. Remsburg could be undeterred by his terrible wounds, the rest of us should act with similar determination to make America great.

 

The irony here is that our troops (and their families’) sacrifices have not been even remotely matched by a corresponding sense of service and dedication to the national interest here at home — and especially by this President and this Congress.

 

Nor did the Commander in Chief say what he was really going to do about the Afghanistan War, now that it has repetitively been proven to be both purposeless and unwinnable — for at least the last decade.  In light of the proposed agreement with Afghani President Karzai, which is aimed at holding significant numbers of American troops in Afghanistan through 2024, it is difficult to see our Commander in Chief’s promises of being out of Aghanistan for good, this year, as genuine.

 

In sum, contrast the courageously (and almost miraculously standing) Sgt. Remsburg with the mostly spineless political narcissists, who stood applauding around him — at this annually asinine Executive Branch self-celebration.

 

 

Intentional misdirection

 

With the Commander in Chief’s arguably cynical Cory Remsburg ploy as an assist, Washington’s Executive and Legislative ethics-lacking political elite managed to divert attention from their unending parade of sins — of governmental incompetence, poverty-dealing, Fourth Amendment-squashing, and troops-maiming — by pointing toward someone, who really is a human being to admire and emulate.

 

 

The moral? — Crassly disingenuous

 

But what else should I have expected from this group of incestuously self-serving, perennially oozy fat cats?