Catherine Vogt, 14, is an Illinois 8th grader, the daughter of a liberal mom and a conservative dad. She wanted to conduct an experiment in political tolerance and diversity of opinion at her school in the liberal suburb of Oak Park.
She noticed that fellow students at Gwendolyn Brooks Middle School overwhelmingly supported Barack Obama for president. His campaign kept preaching “inclusion,” and she decided to see how included she could be.
So just before the election, Catherine consulted with her history teacher, then bravely wore a unique T-shirt to school and recorded the comments of teachers and students in her journal. The T-shirt bore the simple yet quite subversive words drawn with a red marker:
“McCain Girl.”
“I was just really curious how they’d react to something that different, because a lot of people at my school wore Obama shirts and they are big Obama supporters,” Catherine told us. “I just really wanted to see what their reaction would be.”
Immediately, Catherine learned she was stupid for wearing a shirt with Republican John McCain’s name. Not merely stupid. Very stupid.
“People were upset. But they started saying things, calling me very stupid, telling me my shirt was stupid and I shouldn’t be wearing it,” Catherine said.
Then it got worse.
“One person told me to go die. It was a lot of dying. A lot of comments about how I should be killed,” Catherine said, of the tolerance in Oak Park.
[...]
One student suggested that she be put up on a cross for her political beliefs.
“He said, ‘You should be crucifixed.’ It was kind of funny because, I was like, don’t you mean ‘crucified?’ ” Catherine said.
Other entries in her notebook involved suggestions by classmates that she be “burned with her shirt on” for “being a filthy-rich Republican.”
Ironic, isn’t it? The Left, who claim to be the party of tolerance, are in fact, so intolerant that they actually cross the line into bigotry. Now. what makes this so interesting is the fact these are kids spewing out such hatred due to a difference in politics. This is not an inborn behavior… this is learned. These kids were taught to hate those who disagree with them… whether it be by their parents or their teachers.
It is a sad thing, for a politcal ideology to be rooted in hate. But that is the Democratic Party of today.
Madison resident Brian Jopek, the father of Ryan Jopek, the young soldier who tragically lost his life to a roadside bomb in 2006, recently said on a Wisconsin Public Radio show that his family had asked Barack Obama to stop wearing the bracelet with his son’s name on it. Yet Obama continues to do so despite the wishes of the family.
…
Jopek began by saying that his ex-wife was taken aback, even upset, that Obama has made the death of her son a campaign issue. Jopek says his wife gave Obama the bracelet because “she just wanted Mr. Obama to know Ryan’s name.” Jopek went on to say that “she wasn’t looking to turn it into a big media event” and “just wanted it to be something between Barack Obama and herself.” Apparently, they were all shocked it became such a big deal.
But, he also said that his ex-wife has refused further interviews on the matter and that she wanted Obama to stop wearing the reminder of her son’s sacrifice that he keeps turning into a campaign soundbyte.
Of course this isn’t the first time Barack Obama has put politics ahead of the lives of our soldiers:
UPDATE, by Mark Noonan: An NRO reader has an excellent point on the bracelet issue:
While some are looking for confirmation whether Mrs. Jopek had asked Senator Obama to stop wearing (or using it) her son’s wristband, what all are ignoring is Sergeant Jopek supported the mission in Iraq and died supporting a cause he believed in. That is Obama’s greatest shame, that he has always failed to say that SGT Jopek gave all in a cause he believed in.
Yet that is just like what the liberal media failed to say when they propped up Cindy Sheehan. Not once to date in over 150 entries has the NY Times mentioned that Casey Sheehan 1) reenlisted knowing he would be deployed to Iraq, 2) volunteered for the rescue mission he died during, and 3) when told he did not have to volunteer, replied, “Where my Chief goes, I go.” (’Chief’ is the formal title for the head of a maintenance section in the U.S. Army. Casey Sheehan was a mechanic).
Sorry to say, but you can’t support the troops unless you support their mission and their victory - Obama supported neither, and its nauseating that he would even try to pretend he supports the troops. The only excuse I can think of for him - in an attempt to be generous - is to figure that he just doesn’t understand…that his ignorance of war and service is so monumental that he doesn’t understand what insult he’s offering to all veterans by his political stunt with the bracelet.
I guess with only a bit more than a year to go, the MSM has decided that they’d better tell a bit of the truth in order to tidy things up - don’t want to have the historians only find MSM reports at complete variance with the facts, now do they? Anyways, here is the Washington Post’s entry:
The war in Iraq seems to have taken a turn for the better and the opposition at home has failed in all efforts to impose its own strategy. North Korea is dismantling its nuclear program. The budget deficit is falling. A new attorney general has been confirmed despite objections from the left.
After more than two years of being buffeted by one political disaster after another, President Bush and his strategists think they may finally be getting back at least a bit of their footing. While still facing enormous challenges, from the crisis in Pakistan to the backlash over children’s health care, they hope Bush has arrested his downward spiral and established a better foundation for the remainder of his time in office.
In many ways, the shifting political fortunes may owe as much to the absence of bad news as to any particular good news. No one lately has been indicted, botched a hurricane relief effort or shot someone in a hunting accident. Instead, pictures from Iraq show people returning to the streets as often as they show a new suicide bombing. And Bush has bolstered morale inside the West Wing and rallied his Republican base through a strategy of confrontation with the Democratic Congress, built on the expansive use of his veto pen.
Of course, the story goes on to the obligatory reference to President Bush’s record low approval ratings…numbers I don’t entirely buy given the fact that President Bush has managed to put a backbone into the Congressional GOP; something which should not have been possible if his approval ratings were as low as stated. Unless, of course, the Democrats managed to beat just the right GOPers in 2006 - you know, our real wet noodles (and, come to think of it, we’re not burdened with Chaffee anymore…but we are still stuck with Specter).
Anyways, what we have seen since election day 2006 is a masterful political performance by a man who is still misunderestimated by his critics. You’d think that since he’s been running rings around the Democrats and the MSM since 2000 that they would finally get a clue about how over-matched they are by President Bush. But, no: they keep on as if their stories of him being stupid are true. Ah, well - it will be 50 years before a true understanding of President Bush can be presented to the American people. We of our generation with all of our passions will have to pass from the scene, and then people will be able to learn about one of America’s greatest Presidents as he really is.
