The swine flu may be mild in some people, but in many it is much worse that regular flu. In a number of people, the virus almost immediately attacks the lung tissue. People with underlying conditions such as asthma become severely ill and often need hospitalization to survive. People particularly at risk include those with chronic respiratory problems, including asthma, COPD, and cystic fibrosis. It also includes minorities, pregnant women, people with high blood pressure, and the morbidly obese.
Both my husband and I had what we believe to have been swine flu. Last month, he came home from school with an extremely runny nose and scratchy throat. By the next day, he had overwhelming fatigue and body aches. He ran a slight fever on the third day, but never much of one. I very suddenly came down with it on the fourth evening after my husband came home sick. (Earlier in the afternoon I had actually taken note of how unusually good I was feeling that day.) Once again the symptoms were a very runny nose (a waterfall), scratchy throat, and severe fatigue. Within 24 hours I was extremely short-winded and having to use my asthma rescue inhaler more than ever before. Because I was having so much trouble breathing, we went in to see the doctor – who after hearing my deep cough and listening to my lungs, did a chest x-ray and found me to have ACUTE PNEUMONIA. I had thought it was just really bad asthma – although a danger in and of itself. She said that if I had waited another day to see her, she would have had to put me in the hospital.
It is pneumonia that kills those who die from swine flu, not the flu itself.
It took two rounds – 28 days – of antibiotics to knock out the pneumonia. It took about that long to get over the fatigue. The fatigue was overwhelming – worse than the fatigue I get with my fibromyalgia. I was too tired to do anything – even watching television was too taxing, so I slept a lot. My husband was so worried about me that he did something he never does: he stayed home with me for several days. He wanted to be sure that I was out of danger. It’s now six weeks since I caught that bug, but I am still run down from having had it. And I am one of the lucky ones because I didn’t die. If I had not seen my doctor when I did, and stubbornly tried to control the breathing problem with my asthma meds, I could have died within just a few days.
That’s scary.
What I'm most alarmed about – and the reason for this blog entry – is my fear that current criteria for diagnosing H1N1 will miss significant numbers of infected and contagious people, thus contributing to rapid spread of the illness in the population. Namely, unlike other types of flu, a person can have flu and be walking around with no fever – thinking they only have a cold.
Public health authorities have known since April that a significant number of people – at least 30% – infected with H1N1 have NO FEVER.
The New York Times says, “The standard definition of influenza includes a fever.1 Yet an odd feature of the new virus is the lack of fever in a significant proportion of documented cases, even after some patients become seriously ill. In Chile, it was about half, in Mexico City about a third, according to Dr. Wenzel. Lack of fever has been noted by other observers in several Canadian and U.S. cases, too.
When fever is used as a primary screening measure, significant numbers of people will not be diagnosed and will therefore continue to spread swine flu germs in the general population. Yet, the USA Center for Disease Control has not revised its criteria for clinical evaluation. My understanding is that it is being left to individual school districts to create their own policies. At the present time, in our school district, screening for flu still includes fever as a criterion, even though the evidence shows this will result in a false negative assessment somewhere between 12% and 50% of the time!! If this is correct, it means that significant numbers of H1N1 cases will not be properly diagnosed.
Also, the rapid test that doctors use in their office for regular flu will not show up as having flu over half the time if you have H1N1. A study looking at the effectiveness of a rapid flu test in the first few weeks of the H1N1 pandemic in May found it detected less than half of the cases later confirmed by more sophisticated tests. In September, the CDC said doctors should not wait for laboratory confirmation of H1N1 because quick treatment is important, and because a negative rapid test does not rule out the flu. 2
Our doctor used the regular flu rapid test on both of us – with negative results. But they had to try twice to get a sample from me because I had taken an antihistamine which dried me out. My husband was basically over the flu and, of course, came up negative. So, because the tests results were negative and because we had no fever, the doctor decided that we did not have flu. I love my doctor – she is wonderful – but I think she missed this diagnosis completely. We are both convinced that we had swine flu. This infection was unlike any other we had ever experienced. And my very rapid decline into acute pneumonia was a huge red flag for swine flu. I have an underlying condition – asthma – so this virus went deep into my lung tissue very quickly!
Federal officials recently said that the number of children who have died from swine flu has jumped sharply as the virus continues to spread widely around the United States, striking mostly youngsters, teenagers, young adults, and pregnant women. While most of the children who have died had underlying health problems such as asthma, muscular dystrophy and cerebral palsy that made them particularly vulnerable, 20 to 30 percent were otherwise healthy. Between 46 and 88 children die every year from the seasonal flu, so the fact that more than that have already died from swine flu is disturbing. It is only October.
Because of the potentially deadly side of H1N1, the consequences of leaving a contagious student (without a fever) in the general school population can be very serious. Since older members of the population seem to have some residual resistance due to swine flu epidemics in the 1950's and 1960's, it is the school children who are one of the groups most at risk for swine flu. If children are not screened, diagnosed, and contagious students excluded from school, the virus will continue to spread like wildfire causing many unnecessary deaths before a protective vaccine arrives.
1. http://www.nytimes.com/2009/05/13/health/13fever.html
2. http://www.reuters.com/article/marketsNews/idUSN242682220090924
Friday, October 23, 2009
Thursday, October 15, 2009
Off with their heads!
Far right-wing activists across the nation are enraged by Senator Lindsey Graham’s (R-SC) decision to work with Senator John Kerry (D-MA) to craft comprehensive climate and clean energy legislation. In an op-ed published in Sunday’s New York Times, Graham and Kerry wrote about their agreement on a framework for mandatory global warming pollution reductions linked to government support for the nuclear, coal, and natural gas industries. The Natural Resource Defense Council’s Dan Lashof embraced the announcement as a game changer. Graham has recognized the threat of global warming and agreed to work with Democrats. Those “conservatives” who deny global warming see this as total abandonment.
Graham has said: “I think the planet is heating up. I think CO2 emissions are damaging the environment and this dependence on foreign oil is a natural disaster in the making. Let’s do something about it. I’d like to solve the problem – and if it’s on President Obama’s watch, it doesn’t bother me one bit if it makes the country better off.”
Although he votes with Republicans over 90% of the time, Graham’s willingness to drop blind partisanship for the chance to help shape climate legislation is making him the latest target of the extremist right, who drove Sen. Arlen Specter (D-PA) out of the Republican Party and demonized Rep. Mike Castle (R-DE). Yesterday, Graham held a town hall meeting in Greenville, South Carolina in which local teabaggers accused him of “going to bed with John Kerry” and making a “pact with the devil.” These accusations generated tremendous applause by the assembled crowd.
Unless you believe that global warming is a hoax, Lindsey Graham’s efforts are what Republican stalwarts and conservative activists should want from GOP officials – taking an already corporate-friendly pollution reduction system and using his support as leverage to establish conservative-leaning business interests – the nuclear, coal, oil, and natural gas industries. But the teabaggers cannot see past their noses to understand this concept.
The mistake that many teabaggers are making is to believe that denial of the science of global warming should be a plank of the Republican Party. Like the anti-immigrant fervor and race-tinged fear and hatred of President Obama that drive many of these activists, the idea that climate change is just a big Al Gore conspiracy threatens to consign the Republican Party to irrelevance even as it hurts the nation and the world. These days, it is hard to tell whether there is a consistent GOP ideology, what with the belief espoused by the far-right wingnuts that Obama is simultaneously a communist, fascist, Marxist (same as communist – but they do not seem to know it), socialist, tool of corporations like GE and Goldman Sachs, tool of the United Nations, and other mutually irrational and inconsistent conspiracies.
Following the trend set by the Bush administration of “you’re either for us or against us,” the teabaggers are intent on driving any remaining Republican moderates and conservatives who are willing to negotiate with the Democrats out of the party – such as Senators Lindsey Graham, Olympia Snowe, and Susan Collins. They have dubbed officials who don’t vote with the ultra conservatives 100% of the time RINOs (Republican in name only).
Come 2012, the Republican Party will be relegated mostly to the Southern States, the nationwide teabaggers, and 99.9% White – with party views rivaling those espoused by the Queen of Hearts in Wonderland:
“Off with their heads!”
Graham has said: “I think the planet is heating up. I think CO2 emissions are damaging the environment and this dependence on foreign oil is a natural disaster in the making. Let’s do something about it. I’d like to solve the problem – and if it’s on President Obama’s watch, it doesn’t bother me one bit if it makes the country better off.”
Although he votes with Republicans over 90% of the time, Graham’s willingness to drop blind partisanship for the chance to help shape climate legislation is making him the latest target of the extremist right, who drove Sen. Arlen Specter (D-PA) out of the Republican Party and demonized Rep. Mike Castle (R-DE). Yesterday, Graham held a town hall meeting in Greenville, South Carolina in which local teabaggers accused him of “going to bed with John Kerry” and making a “pact with the devil.” These accusations generated tremendous applause by the assembled crowd.
Unless you believe that global warming is a hoax, Lindsey Graham’s efforts are what Republican stalwarts and conservative activists should want from GOP officials – taking an already corporate-friendly pollution reduction system and using his support as leverage to establish conservative-leaning business interests – the nuclear, coal, oil, and natural gas industries. But the teabaggers cannot see past their noses to understand this concept.
The mistake that many teabaggers are making is to believe that denial of the science of global warming should be a plank of the Republican Party. Like the anti-immigrant fervor and race-tinged fear and hatred of President Obama that drive many of these activists, the idea that climate change is just a big Al Gore conspiracy threatens to consign the Republican Party to irrelevance even as it hurts the nation and the world. These days, it is hard to tell whether there is a consistent GOP ideology, what with the belief espoused by the far-right wingnuts that Obama is simultaneously a communist, fascist, Marxist (same as communist – but they do not seem to know it), socialist, tool of corporations like GE and Goldman Sachs, tool of the United Nations, and other mutually irrational and inconsistent conspiracies.
Following the trend set by the Bush administration of “you’re either for us or against us,” the teabaggers are intent on driving any remaining Republican moderates and conservatives who are willing to negotiate with the Democrats out of the party – such as Senators Lindsey Graham, Olympia Snowe, and Susan Collins. They have dubbed officials who don’t vote with the ultra conservatives 100% of the time RINOs (Republican in name only).
Come 2012, the Republican Party will be relegated mostly to the Southern States, the nationwide teabaggers, and 99.9% White – with party views rivaling those espoused by the Queen of Hearts in Wonderland:
“Off with their heads!”
Monday, October 12, 2009
Obama and the Nobel Peace Prize
A president can set the nation’s tone, change attitudes, and move policy by making a speech or a statement. Presidential statements are picked up by the media and spread to the masses for consumption in such a way that the President essentially commands what the public pays attention to. In Obama's case this has been healthcare for all citizens, global warming, nuclear proliferation, race relations, and the United States relations with the Muslim world.
The Nobel Peace Prize was given to Obama this past Friday as a signal from the world that the United States is back in their good graces (well, most of the world) – and President Obama deserves full credit for that. Judging from the statement put out by the Nobel committee, the award is more for the promise of what Obama hopes to accomplish on global warming, nuclear weapons reduction, Middle East peace, focusing on international diplomacy and cooperation, and for "capturing the world's attention and giving its people hope for a better future" than for what he has accomplished to date. Thorbjørn Jagland, the chairman of the Norwegian Nobel Committee and a former prime minister of Norway, explained that Obama's early international diplomacy efforts is what helped him beat out other nominees. In other words, Obama’s agenda is the reason he has received this award.
“Thanks to Obama’s initiative, the USA is now playing a more constructive role in meeting the great climatic challenges the world is confronting,” the secretive five-member committee said. Obama's Nobel Prize win, as much as Conservatives want it to be, is no accident. It came from the Presidents risk-taking work in making daring speeches and visits to dangerous places to bring disparate people together.
Of course there was criticism from some people because Obama has not yet achieved his goals. The far-right wingnuts said the world rebuked Obama after he went to Copenhagen and suffered a “defeat” by unsuccessfully lobbying for Chicago to get the 2016 Olympic Games. In doing so, I think wingnuts actually influenced the Nobel committee’s decision. In giving this award to Obama, the Nobel committee is telling the rightwing forces to back off. This Nobel Peace Prize is a deliberate answer to the attitude of the wingnuts and their refusal to play nice. The Nobel committee is giving a hand up to Obama against his domestic adversaries and sending a message of encouragement to those Americans who put Obama in office.
The Nobel committee wants to encourage President Obama to continue pursuing his promise of change in world relations. Anyone who thinks that giving the Peace Prize as encouragement before anything has been accomplished is wrong. This is not unprecedented. The Nobel Committee gave South African Bishop Desmond Tutu the Nobel Peace Prize in 1984 for his leadership of efforts to abolish apartheid in South Africa. Apartheid wasn't fully abolished in South Africa until 1994. The committee could have waited until after apartheid was abolished to say, "Well done!" But the point of the award was to help bring down apartheid by strengthening Bishop Tutu's efforts.
During the daily news update with White House Press Secretary Robert Gibbs on Friday, a reporter was questioning (in a ranting way) as to why Ronald Reagan didn't gain such an award. The answer is easy: Reagan's constant saber-rattling against the Soviet Union had many of us considering moving to Canada just to be out of the way of the possible results of his reckless abandon. Under President Reagan one had the uneasy feeling he was willing to push the red button and get us all blown to hell at any time. In the end, Reagan essentially broke the economic back of Russia, but he did so by causing America to pay the heavy price of being considered the World's new bully.
The contrast in America’s relations with the world while President Bush was in office is pretty stark on nuclear weapons reduction, Middle East peace, and global warming. The Bush administration dropped efforts to get the Senate to ratify the U.N.’s Kyoto Protocol, a pact adopted by all other industrialized nations for curbing greenhouse gas emissions until 2012. It's a change that clearly appeals to the Nobel committee, although the committee is well aware that history is contingent and that Obama might fail. It knows very well that the same country that elected Obama also gave the world George W. Bush and Ronald Reagan – and that the far right faction can once again take over.
The Nobel award is a massive repudiation of several decades of Republican "Cowboy" diplomacy. It is a rebuke to the George W. Bush administration and his unilateralism – his “you are either with us or against us” attitude. Masculine virility and macho militarism was fused with the national symbols of the flag and the military. Europeans have seen this before. When we were engaged in our self-congratulating rally, the rest of the world was absolutely horrified. Bush-Chaney lead American foreign policy toward militarism and unilateralism, and he did so with Christian fundamentalist flair. President Obama, in less than ten months, has reset American foreign policy more toward multilateralism and a mature engagement with the world. He has a long way to go and things might not work out. But at least he is moving in the right direction.
President Obama, the third sitting U.S. president to receive the award, has been anointed an important leader on a world scale and is now someone who must be heard not just because he's President of The United States. The award says his actions signal a positive change for the world. The Nobel committee has set the table for Obama's emergence on the world stage as a difference-maker. For the GOP to oppose him now is to go against one of the most important leaders in the history of the free world.
But the GOP is not listening. The hatred and vitriolic response from the right shows they have lost ability to accept something good when it comes our way internationally. The GOP has become so brainwashed by the belligerent Bush-Cheney-Bolton unilateralism of the previous eight years, with its hatred for the world and its people, they are incapable of recognizing the simple truth that it is much better for America to have a president who is admired and respected in the world than one who is despised and feared. Everything Obama has achieved has been met with withering sarcasm and ridicule. He sends Bill Clinton to free American prisoners in North Korea and it turns out to be a stunning success that offers a breakthrough in relations with that weird and dangerous nation and the media greet the news with a collective yawn. His efforts to win the 2016 Olympics are fruitless but provide hours of joy for rightwing loudmouths who ridicule and demean his effort. He wins the Nobel Peace Prize and these same gasbags trash the Nobel Prize and the President.
What is being missed due to the deafening cacophony coming from the rightwing is that Americans should use this Nobel Prize as yet another Obama-inspired "teaching moment" to come to terms with just how much George W. Bush's foreign policy scared the h*ll out of the rest of the world (and many Americans, too). Instead, the GOP aims vitriol at the President for winning it. They do not care about the world’s perception that most Americans came to their senses when Obama was elected. They do not care that for the first time in years the world is looking toward the United States for global leadership. They preferred the childish bullying, the "you are either with us or against us" attitude, the rooster-like crowing about how great we are and if you don’t like it we’ll pound you into the ground like we do the opposing team at a football game – it made them feel good.
This is a symbolic prize – an international recognition that Obama is at least on the right track. There are times when what's good for America should trump partisan politics. President Obama was honored Friday because the world is hearing "America" and "peace" in the same sentence for the first time in years. That's good.
Congratulations, Mr. President. The world supports you in your endeavors – and so do a majority of Americans. Now comes the hard part: turning goodwill into concrete results that can heal the wounds of a very troubled world – and a very troubled nation. If you can do that you will deserve another Nobel Peace Prize.
The Nobel Peace Prize was given to Obama this past Friday as a signal from the world that the United States is back in their good graces (well, most of the world) – and President Obama deserves full credit for that. Judging from the statement put out by the Nobel committee, the award is more for the promise of what Obama hopes to accomplish on global warming, nuclear weapons reduction, Middle East peace, focusing on international diplomacy and cooperation, and for "capturing the world's attention and giving its people hope for a better future" than for what he has accomplished to date. Thorbjørn Jagland, the chairman of the Norwegian Nobel Committee and a former prime minister of Norway, explained that Obama's early international diplomacy efforts is what helped him beat out other nominees. In other words, Obama’s agenda is the reason he has received this award.
“Thanks to Obama’s initiative, the USA is now playing a more constructive role in meeting the great climatic challenges the world is confronting,” the secretive five-member committee said. Obama's Nobel Prize win, as much as Conservatives want it to be, is no accident. It came from the Presidents risk-taking work in making daring speeches and visits to dangerous places to bring disparate people together.
Of course there was criticism from some people because Obama has not yet achieved his goals. The far-right wingnuts said the world rebuked Obama after he went to Copenhagen and suffered a “defeat” by unsuccessfully lobbying for Chicago to get the 2016 Olympic Games. In doing so, I think wingnuts actually influenced the Nobel committee’s decision. In giving this award to Obama, the Nobel committee is telling the rightwing forces to back off. This Nobel Peace Prize is a deliberate answer to the attitude of the wingnuts and their refusal to play nice. The Nobel committee is giving a hand up to Obama against his domestic adversaries and sending a message of encouragement to those Americans who put Obama in office.
The Nobel committee wants to encourage President Obama to continue pursuing his promise of change in world relations. Anyone who thinks that giving the Peace Prize as encouragement before anything has been accomplished is wrong. This is not unprecedented. The Nobel Committee gave South African Bishop Desmond Tutu the Nobel Peace Prize in 1984 for his leadership of efforts to abolish apartheid in South Africa. Apartheid wasn't fully abolished in South Africa until 1994. The committee could have waited until after apartheid was abolished to say, "Well done!" But the point of the award was to help bring down apartheid by strengthening Bishop Tutu's efforts.
During the daily news update with White House Press Secretary Robert Gibbs on Friday, a reporter was questioning (in a ranting way) as to why Ronald Reagan didn't gain such an award. The answer is easy: Reagan's constant saber-rattling against the Soviet Union had many of us considering moving to Canada just to be out of the way of the possible results of his reckless abandon. Under President Reagan one had the uneasy feeling he was willing to push the red button and get us all blown to hell at any time. In the end, Reagan essentially broke the economic back of Russia, but he did so by causing America to pay the heavy price of being considered the World's new bully.
The contrast in America’s relations with the world while President Bush was in office is pretty stark on nuclear weapons reduction, Middle East peace, and global warming. The Bush administration dropped efforts to get the Senate to ratify the U.N.’s Kyoto Protocol, a pact adopted by all other industrialized nations for curbing greenhouse gas emissions until 2012. It's a change that clearly appeals to the Nobel committee, although the committee is well aware that history is contingent and that Obama might fail. It knows very well that the same country that elected Obama also gave the world George W. Bush and Ronald Reagan – and that the far right faction can once again take over.
The Nobel award is a massive repudiation of several decades of Republican "Cowboy" diplomacy. It is a rebuke to the George W. Bush administration and his unilateralism – his “you are either with us or against us” attitude. Masculine virility and macho militarism was fused with the national symbols of the flag and the military. Europeans have seen this before. When we were engaged in our self-congratulating rally, the rest of the world was absolutely horrified. Bush-Chaney lead American foreign policy toward militarism and unilateralism, and he did so with Christian fundamentalist flair. President Obama, in less than ten months, has reset American foreign policy more toward multilateralism and a mature engagement with the world. He has a long way to go and things might not work out. But at least he is moving in the right direction.
President Obama, the third sitting U.S. president to receive the award, has been anointed an important leader on a world scale and is now someone who must be heard not just because he's President of The United States. The award says his actions signal a positive change for the world. The Nobel committee has set the table for Obama's emergence on the world stage as a difference-maker. For the GOP to oppose him now is to go against one of the most important leaders in the history of the free world.
But the GOP is not listening. The hatred and vitriolic response from the right shows they have lost ability to accept something good when it comes our way internationally. The GOP has become so brainwashed by the belligerent Bush-Cheney-Bolton unilateralism of the previous eight years, with its hatred for the world and its people, they are incapable of recognizing the simple truth that it is much better for America to have a president who is admired and respected in the world than one who is despised and feared. Everything Obama has achieved has been met with withering sarcasm and ridicule. He sends Bill Clinton to free American prisoners in North Korea and it turns out to be a stunning success that offers a breakthrough in relations with that weird and dangerous nation and the media greet the news with a collective yawn. His efforts to win the 2016 Olympics are fruitless but provide hours of joy for rightwing loudmouths who ridicule and demean his effort. He wins the Nobel Peace Prize and these same gasbags trash the Nobel Prize and the President.
What is being missed due to the deafening cacophony coming from the rightwing is that Americans should use this Nobel Prize as yet another Obama-inspired "teaching moment" to come to terms with just how much George W. Bush's foreign policy scared the h*ll out of the rest of the world (and many Americans, too). Instead, the GOP aims vitriol at the President for winning it. They do not care about the world’s perception that most Americans came to their senses when Obama was elected. They do not care that for the first time in years the world is looking toward the United States for global leadership. They preferred the childish bullying, the "you are either with us or against us" attitude, the rooster-like crowing about how great we are and if you don’t like it we’ll pound you into the ground like we do the opposing team at a football game – it made them feel good.
This is a symbolic prize – an international recognition that Obama is at least on the right track. There are times when what's good for America should trump partisan politics. President Obama was honored Friday because the world is hearing "America" and "peace" in the same sentence for the first time in years. That's good.
Congratulations, Mr. President. The world supports you in your endeavors – and so do a majority of Americans. Now comes the hard part: turning goodwill into concrete results that can heal the wounds of a very troubled world – and a very troubled nation. If you can do that you will deserve another Nobel Peace Prize.
Wednesday, October 7, 2009
Conditional patriotism
A former Bush aide advised Republicans to "resist the temptation to pile on about Chicago losing the Olympic bid just because Obama made the pitch," but he was ignored. A surprising number of conservatives danced a jig over the fact that the United States will not host the Olympic summer games in 2016. As far as I can tell, their glee is driven entirely by their hatred of President Obama. They have apparently decided that Chicago is undeserving since it is Obama’s hometown.
Joe Scarborough, ex-Congressman (R-FL) and host of the Morning Joe talk show, is defending the President in an op-ed at Huffington Post:
"Count me as one conservative who is disappointed that President Obama's hometown will not be hosting the 2016 Olympic Games. Chicago is a beautiful city that would have made a perfect backdrop for the Olympics. The President was right to fly to Copenhagen to try to land the games, not for the sake of his city, but for the good of his country. The fact President Obama failed makes me respect him more for taking the chance, and the fact many right-wing figures opposed the President's mission shows just how narrow-minded partisanship makes us all.
"For the better part of 20 years, a bitterness has infected our politics that has weakened our country. We Republicans spent eight years trying to delegitimize Bill Clinton. Democrats spent the next eight years doing the same to George W. Bush. Now that a Democrat is in the Oval Office again, it is the GOP who is trying to delegitimize a sitting president.
"...Fortunately, there are a growing number of Americans who believe we cannot continue going on this way. You and I may disagree on how the CIA handled terror suspects. But that does not mean that you are soft on terrorism anymore than it means that I hate the Constitution. You and I may have a different approach to Afghanistan. But just because you want to stay there another five years doesn't mean you are an imperialist. And if I believe a decade in that forsaken land is more than enough, that doesn't mean I'm soft on al Qaeda or the Taliban. It just means that we view the world differently.
"...Some of the rhetoric is dangerous. But what we saw from some conservative corners regarding the President's failed Olympics bid was just plain stupid. ...put me down as one conservative who is glad my president flew across the ocean to try to bring the 2016 Games to America.
"Nice try, President Obama... I know that's never an easy thing to do. Count me as one conservative who is disappointed that President Obama's hometown will not be hosting the 2012 Olympic Games."
I agree with Joe Scarborough. When the Weekly Standard's office erupts in cheers it's hard to miss the sadness of watching Americans delight in America's Olympic defeat.
I honestly can't think of the last time I've seen so many high profile Americans root so enthusiastically against their country. Rachel Slajda has some of the highlights from prominent right-wing voices, or low-lights, depending on one's perspective. And it's more than a little upsetting – it makes me angry:
“Cheers erupt at Weekly Standard world headquarters,” wrote editor John McCormack in a post titled “Chicago Loses! Chicago Loses!” The line was quickly removed, but ThinkProgress caught it in time and posted a screenshot.”
“Chicago and Tokyo eliminated. NO Obamalympics,” Michelle Malkin tweeted, following up with, “Game over on Obamalympics. Next up, Obamacare.”
“Hahahahaha,” wrote Red State’s Erick Erickson.
The Drudge Report announced the news like so: “WORLD REJECTS OBAMA:CHICAGO OUT IN FIRST ROUND. THE EGO HAS LANDED.”
“The worst part of the Obama presidency, folks. The ego has landed. The world has rejected Obama,” echoed Rush Limbaugh.
As Rep. Alan Grayson (D-FL) said, "Someone should remind [conservatives] which team they're really on." I remember a time when conservative Republicans claimed to have the high ground on patriotism. But now their patriotism is apparently conditional – it depends on who is in the Whitehouse.
Read more of what Scarborough wrote at: http://www.huffingtonpost.com/joe-scarborough/thank-you-mr-president_b_308022.html
Read more of what Slajda here: http://tpmlivewire.talkingpointsmemo.com/2009/10/weekly-standard-newsroom-erupts-into-cheers-at-news-of-olympics.php?ref=fpblg
Joe Scarborough, ex-Congressman (R-FL) and host of the Morning Joe talk show, is defending the President in an op-ed at Huffington Post:
"Count me as one conservative who is disappointed that President Obama's hometown will not be hosting the 2016 Olympic Games. Chicago is a beautiful city that would have made a perfect backdrop for the Olympics. The President was right to fly to Copenhagen to try to land the games, not for the sake of his city, but for the good of his country. The fact President Obama failed makes me respect him more for taking the chance, and the fact many right-wing figures opposed the President's mission shows just how narrow-minded partisanship makes us all.
"For the better part of 20 years, a bitterness has infected our politics that has weakened our country. We Republicans spent eight years trying to delegitimize Bill Clinton. Democrats spent the next eight years doing the same to George W. Bush. Now that a Democrat is in the Oval Office again, it is the GOP who is trying to delegitimize a sitting president.
"...Fortunately, there are a growing number of Americans who believe we cannot continue going on this way. You and I may disagree on how the CIA handled terror suspects. But that does not mean that you are soft on terrorism anymore than it means that I hate the Constitution. You and I may have a different approach to Afghanistan. But just because you want to stay there another five years doesn't mean you are an imperialist. And if I believe a decade in that forsaken land is more than enough, that doesn't mean I'm soft on al Qaeda or the Taliban. It just means that we view the world differently.
"...Some of the rhetoric is dangerous. But what we saw from some conservative corners regarding the President's failed Olympics bid was just plain stupid. ...put me down as one conservative who is glad my president flew across the ocean to try to bring the 2016 Games to America.
"Nice try, President Obama... I know that's never an easy thing to do. Count me as one conservative who is disappointed that President Obama's hometown will not be hosting the 2012 Olympic Games."
I agree with Joe Scarborough. When the Weekly Standard's office erupts in cheers it's hard to miss the sadness of watching Americans delight in America's Olympic defeat.
I honestly can't think of the last time I've seen so many high profile Americans root so enthusiastically against their country. Rachel Slajda has some of the highlights from prominent right-wing voices, or low-lights, depending on one's perspective. And it's more than a little upsetting – it makes me angry:
“Cheers erupt at Weekly Standard world headquarters,” wrote editor John McCormack in a post titled “Chicago Loses! Chicago Loses!” The line was quickly removed, but ThinkProgress caught it in time and posted a screenshot.”
“Chicago and Tokyo eliminated. NO Obamalympics,” Michelle Malkin tweeted, following up with, “Game over on Obamalympics. Next up, Obamacare.”
“Hahahahaha,” wrote Red State’s Erick Erickson.
The Drudge Report announced the news like so: “WORLD REJECTS OBAMA:CHICAGO OUT IN FIRST ROUND. THE EGO HAS LANDED.”
“The worst part of the Obama presidency, folks. The ego has landed. The world has rejected Obama,” echoed Rush Limbaugh.
As Rep. Alan Grayson (D-FL) said, "Someone should remind [conservatives] which team they're really on." I remember a time when conservative Republicans claimed to have the high ground on patriotism. But now their patriotism is apparently conditional – it depends on who is in the Whitehouse.
Read more of what Scarborough wrote at: http://www.huffingtonpost.com/joe-scarborough/thank-you-mr-president_b_308022.html
Read more of what Slajda here: http://tpmlivewire.talkingpointsmemo.com/2009/10/weekly-standard-newsroom-erupts-into-cheers-at-news-of-olympics.php?ref=fpblg
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