Glenn Beck has rightly apologized for comments he made regarding Malia Obama. He acknowledged that he broke his own rule about not involving a politician’s family in political controversy. His apology was issued immediately and without reservation. Beck knew he made a mistake and took responsibility right away. Having said that, I can’t overlook that fact that it was not Beck who introduced Malia’s name into the discussion of the massive oil spill going on in the Gulf of Mexico. It was Malia’s father who did that by claiming that, while he was shaving in the morning, Malia ask him, “Did you plug the hole yet, Daddy?” First of all, I doubt that the story is true. Malia is his older daughter who would know full well that it was not her daddy who was going to fill the hole. It’s highly unlikely that she would ask such a naive and childish question. By telling the anecdote, however, President Obama sought to create public perception that he was intimately involved in the effort to end the leak — that he thought about it all the time and that he was the man in charge. He was continuing a long tradition of politicians inserting their own families into political discussion when they think it will gain them political points.
Dwight Boud
© 2010
TheMiddleofSomewhere 