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January 24, 2009

Wingnut outrage at Obama skipping ball

The wingnut blogosphere is all a dither with their knickers in a wad about President Obama having allegedly snubbed veterans and Medal of Honor recipients by skipping an inaugural ball. Here's one such example:

Our new CINC attended quite a few gatherings last night, but as This Ain't Hell reports, the Salute To Heroes Inaugural Ball was not one of them. For the first time in 56 years, a newly-inaugurated president has not attended the ball begun by President Eisenhower. 14 presidents later, a snub.

As other blog picked up on the story and enlarged on it, their favorite whipping boy, the mainstream media, was lumped in as culpable for allegedly ignoring this important story.

Out of curiosity I spent some time digging around on veterans sites. Of the blogs I checked, all were lefty or centrist because that's who we link to here - quite a few of whom are veterans. I also checked the gamut of veteran/military websites ranging from the arguably left-leaning (such as Veterans for Peace) to the non-partisan (such as Veterans of Foreign Wars & militaryspot.com).

Not a single one mentioned this alleged snub.

Why do you suppose that is?

I decided to do some more digging.

When I finally ended up reading this post at Newsvine, I'd already independently verified most of what it said via other sources such as Stars & Stripes.

Turns out that The American Legion (who sponsored the ball in question) not only went out of their way to state that they didn't feel snubbed in the slightest, but went on to explain WHY he didn't attend.

President Obama was invited but did not attend. Vice-President Joe Biden did appear, however, and was very warmly received. The new President’s absence was understandable considering the unprecedented logistical challenges presented by the vastly increased number of visitors to this inauguration and the necessary attendant security measures. The American Legion, as an organization, does not feel offended or "snubbed."

Scott Isaacs from Newsvine went on to expand on why President Obama likely skipped the event.

I have found out also that the likely reason that Barack Obama attended the auxiliary balls that he did is because six of the balls that he attended were held in the same building. Therefore, attending those balls and the others that he attended were the most efficient with regards to security. It is no secret that President Obama has had questions surrounding his security, that is evident by observing that he was the earliest presidential candidate ever to get a security detail. If the Secret Service felt it prudent to guard him so early in the campaign can the reader imagine what the Secret Service feels is prudent now that he is the President of the United States?

The most likely reason that President Obama did not go to the "Salute to Heroes" inaugural ball is because it was held in the Renaissance Hotel which consists of 16 floors. There was an event called the "Illinois Party - Presidential Event" held at the Renaissance the night before that the then-President-elect did not attend either (I have a call in to the President's press office asking for confirmation of this information which was given to me by one of my sources for this story). Given the amount of time and resources it would have taken to clear a 16 floor hotel as well as protect it while President Obama was inside, I can only guess that he was advised by his Presidential Protection Detail not to attend either inaugural ball because of the building and the inherent problems in securing and then protecting it. The sheer number of people crowding the streets and staying in the hotel surely presented a formidable screening problem as well. But, there's your story... it's not as sexy as "Barack Obama Hates The Military" but it is the truth as best I can tell after talking to the organization responsible for hosting the event and doing some research and educated guesswork about why a security team wouldn't want to protect a principal in the Renaissance with more than 2 million extra people in Washington D.C. (emphasis supplied by me)

President Obama did attend the Commander in Chief ball which was chock full of veterans and active duty military (the point of the ball existing...). In attendance were 300 disabled/injured veterans brought in from a VA hospital as well as apparently a number of Medal of Honor recipients. Presumably those MoH recipients were snubbing themselves by not being at the other ball?

Incidently, it was pretty easy to find a MSM report on this alleged snub. It was also pretty short work finding this MSM report about a veteran who did attend the ball and apparently didn't feel the slightest bit snubbed by his president skipping the event. In fact, he gives every indication of having felt distinctly honored simply to attend.

Now, I don't claim to be a rocket surgeon. But it's pretty clear to me why the mainstream media and a huge swath of veterans groups didn't deem this alleged snub to be either newsworthy or a snub. The overwhelming majority (confirmed by a few minutes on Google) of those complaining the most bitterly about this alleged snub are and always have been among Obama's harshest critics.

Posted by Kevin at January 24, 2009 06:34 PM