Thursday, September 10, 2009

Seriously?

Okay, since when is our current President, the President of the United States of America, or any President, for that matter, featured on the traditional class ring? I don’t seem to recall this option last year. If memory serves, there sure wasn’t any George Dubya Bush engraving available! What is up with THAT!?

Evidently our Commander in Chief has reached new celebrity status. The thing is, he’s not a celebrity. He’s a guy, who happened to get elected to public office! Job description might read “Public Servant” numero uno. Maybe this is a hip new brainstorm on the part of the Jostens Jewelry company, but it follows a rather disturbing trend. . . Elevating this man to something higher than public servant status! Yes, he is our president. Yes, we should be respectful. But no, he is not a celebrity, or a god, or a king. He is an elected official, deserving of no higher recognition than of any of the other elected officials, who happen to be serving their country 9 to 5. Hey, wait a minute! Maybe this isn’t so bad. . . Do you think, if I ask nice, do you think maybe I could get a Jason Chaffetz insignia put on my ring? Or maybe we could take it to the next level, and have available engravings of ALL people with political affiliations! Rush Limbaugh, first pick! That’s what I want! A Rush Limbaugh class ring! We could even get jazzy, and carve “What a Rush!” as an inside engraving. Good times!

Here’s what a friend of mine wrote during a discussion about the President’s address to school children Tuesday:

“Clearly the President should be able to address the nation's citizens including school children. I am happy to allow my children to be inspired by an ordinary citizen who has risen to lead the country. However, that's exactly what the President is...an ordinary citizen who is temporarily elevated to a position of leadership who will then return to his place as an ordinary citizen like the rest of us. It's important to me that my kids respect the office of the presidency and realize that anyone can (theoretically) achieve the office. The tone of the directives to teachers in advance of the speech (what can the kids do to help Obama) concerned me because I perceived we were elevating the man and not the office. I'm not sure if the boys are watching today because the school hasn't said and I haven't asked. Either way, we regularly have discussions at dinner concerning politics and I'm sure tonight will be no different.”

My personal favorite was the question worded “How does President Obama inspire me?” How indeed.

1 comment:

Ben said...

He inspires me to fear the direction on our country, that's how he inspires me.

Yeah he's quite the arrogant, self-serving, devious individual. That all sounds pretty harsh, but it's also pretty clear with the way he's handled healthcare, the Harvard arrest controversy, and several other matters.