Barack Obama: Patron Saint of the Press
Photo Credit: APDuring this week’s State of the Union address, the President of the United States concluded his remarks telling the story of Sgt. 1st Class Cory Remsburg. Sgt. Remsburg, on his 10th tour in Afghanistan, nearly lost his life when a roadside bomb exploded.
Sgt. Remsburg suffered brain damage and paralysis on his left side, is now partially blind and has difficulty speaking. It was a touching ending to an otherwise shabby speech. More striking than President Obama’s tribute was the press corps’ reaction. NBC News Senior Political Editor Mark Murray declared on twitter that, “Obama’s ending on Remsburg wasn’t just a story about America — it also was a story about Obama. Nothing has ever come easy.”
Former White House speechwriter Jon Favreau chimed in and agreed. Certainly Barack Obama is incapable of saluting others without making it about himself. After Nelson Mandela died, President Obama saluted him by sending out a picture of the President in Mandela’s jail cell. Honoring the men who died at Pearl Harbor, the president sent out a picture of himself at the USS Arizona. It was then natural to conclude that a narcissist like that would intend to make Cory Remsburg’s story about himself.
Had Mark Murray meant that, it would have been all well and good. But that is not what Murray meant. Writing at NBC News, Murray expanded his tweet, writing, “That story could also apply to Obama himself: Nothing in his seven years on the national political stage … has come easy. … And now the president’s current situation in which he finds himself bloodied and bruised after the botched health-care rollout.”
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