First he was the first President EVER to miss the Heroes Ball on Inauguration day and now President Obama has done some monumental snubbing again!
President Obama declined an invitation to attend an annual dinner at the Gridiron Club, a club of prestigious reporters, columnist, and bureau chiefs in Washington. Obama is the first president since Grover Cleveland (who’s last term of presidency ended in 1897 just to give you some frame of reference) to miss the dinner and it is not going unnoticed.
Although the club issued a statement saying, “we understand,” many still feel snubbed. Clarence Page, a columnist with the Chicago Tribune stated, “People feel uncommonly saddened, miffed, and burned.”
Obama’s busy schedule is said to be the reason he could not attend the dinner, but I find it funny that he finds time for Jay Leno and basketball games. I know everyone deserves some time off, but is he really choosing his appearances wisely? Celebs over heroes? Time for Jay Leno but not Gridiron? What do you think? Is our new Prez a bit of a celebrity-whore?
March 30th, 2009 at 11:08 am
I don’t think he is a celebrity whore. He is choosing to make an appearance to the common people- via the celebrity circuit- instead of playing “footsies” with these media assholes who bend the news to their will.
Eff tradition and the way sh#t used to be run. We need change. The reason why our economy is so screwed up is the corruption in government and the capitalists juggernauts who buy their way into higher profits. The government turns a blind eye while getting their pockets stuffed with campaign donations from these assholes who have shifted power from the workers to management. Reagan effed us all.
April 1st, 2009 at 1:21 pm
This also appeared in the European press, but completely different. Here it was stated as one of his attempts to create change. The Gridiron Club is described in this article as a club of prestigious reporters, but in the European papers (at least what I’ve read) as a symbol of how politics and the media are dependent of each other in the States. As a symbol of the lack of objective reporting. The place where all the lobbying happens. While the appearance at Jay Leno’s was described as a conscious choice to directly address a big audience instead of a prestigious few. Up to the viewer to decide what to believe, I would say.