When the White House Takes Umbrage

After a school necessitated hiatus, the Pax is back with a vengeance faithful readers.  Unless you’ve been lounging about the caves of Tora Bora the past 48 hrs, the uproar over televangelist Pat Robertson’s latest gaffe is old-hat by this point. 

That Pat Robertson’s invectives make news at all is, perhaps, even more troubling than the aged minister’s comments.

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Rightly, Pat Robertson’s offensive remarks were strongly condemned by President Obama’s White House in this morning’s presser with White House Spokesperson Robert Gibbs.  In fact, Gibbsy (as he is affectionately called) even managed to rope in talk show host Rush Limbaugh for similarly tangential remarks he made on the Haiti crisis.

Of this foot-in-mouth duo, Gibbs remarked:

"It never ceases to amaze that in times of amazing human suffering somebody says something that could be so utterly stupid," Gibbs said when asked about Robertson's comments. "But it, like clockwork, happens with some regularity."

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Bingo, Mr. Gibbs.  Hate speech of all stripes should be soundly ridiculed for the idiocy that it is, regardless of the quarter from whence it came.  The ‘utterly stupid’ nature of such remarks deserves the condemnation of each and every responsible citizens.

Unless, you’re the Democrats’ Majority Leader…

Given the strong reaction to Robertson and Limbaugh, the White House response was strikingly muted despite similarly offensive comments made by Democrat Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid. Just last week, the latest political tome quoted the Democrat leader as saying:

[T]hat Obama's presidential candidacy was viable because he is "light skinned" and has no "Negro dialect, unless he wants to."

Surely, such closed-minded, racially offensive comments deserve an equal and opposite reprimand from the White House.  Surely, the Democrat Leader’s remarks are an example of clockwork, utter stupidity that the Press Secretary mentioned? After all, given the Majority Leader’s unique position of public trust, what do the comments accomplish if not setting back race relations in this country for years?

“Harry Reid has no need to apologize to me because I know Harry Reid. I measure people more so on what they do rather than the things they say,” said Obama, in a roundtable with several media outlets, including POLITICO.

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Oh.

So, all in all, volatile comments notwithstanding, the White House response to inane remarks is pretty much business as usual.  If you make outrageous remarks, expect the full brunt of the White House bully pulpit.

Except if you are a political ally making outrageous remarks, then you are as welcomed in the White House fold as Michaele and Tareq Salahi – no questions asked.