I’ve written this blog on and off for over a year now and I’ve gotten hundreds of hate mail responses to different posts. Usually I write the author back to explain my point-of-view a little more thoroughly however in this case this guy is begging to be made an example of.

Here are Bryan the moron’s comments:
Bryan { 04.24.09 at 3:00 pm }

I love it, this article says they were asked to cover up all signs and symbols there….true. This website does NOT tell you that it had nothing to do with religious symbols, they wanted ALL signs and symbols removed for his normal backdrop of flags and a black background, like he does all the time, no matter where he speaks. If that was not bad enough, the writer of this drivel only giving you half the story, then askes you to “put that aside for a moment” and goes on a rant about a visit to a mosque which has NOTHING to do with the story…and never does go back to the White House explanation that was brushed aside to consider the mosque story. Anyone, like Anna Maria, who sucked right up to the teet of this obviously slanted, right wing-nut fringe “article” really need to go back to skool. And Anna has the nerve to call Obama supporters ignorant…..err, scuze me ignorent….or is it ig-nant?? Jesus Christ and Holy Cow some Amerikans are so gullible. For those of you that need assistance, gullible means you are a “sucker” incapable of critical thinking, taking one source as gospel and running with it.

Let’s first start with the fact that he spells his name with that insufferable Y in Bryan. This immediately discredits his take. However, for shits and giggles, let’s continue to evaluate the content of his comments.

He says that, “they (the White House) wanted ALL signs and symbols removed for his normal backdrop of flags and a black background, like he does all the time, no matter where he speaks.” OK, let’s examine this claim. All one needs to do is a simple search under President Obama Speeches and Google turns up literally dozens of pictures, like the one below, that run counter to this Mensa winners claim and he’s only 100 days or so into office.

Obama does not have a standardized podium ESPECIALLY when he addresses private audiences and when he visits foreign countries like the picture shows below. Thus the relevancy of my comparison to Barack’s visit to the Mosque and his speech in front of a Catholic audience.

Continuing on his blog bash Bryan states that it’s a bad thing that I, “rant about a visit to a mosque which has NOTHING to do with the story.” As previously described there is an actual linkage between the two, as they are both non political events. The point here is he would have found this out or known if he wasn’t blindy biased one way or another.

This is actually a point I’ve been wanting to make for some time now. Essentially his intellectual dishonestly is the problem with true ideologues. My sense is that Byran is a liberal based simply on the fact that all comments on this article espouse a response from the far Right or Left and oh yes, his facts are wrong.

The only redeeming quality in his comments is at the end of his pissy diatribe. Here he salvages some grace by stating that, “gullible means you are a “sucker” incapable of critical thinking, taking one source as gospel and running with it.”

He’s actually unwittingly a man of similiar thought though no doubt poorer taste. What he’s trying to tell me, although making a half ass attempt at it, is that the essential problem with politics is the tendency towards two fringe points of view.

This isn’t surprising because understanding ONLY two sides of an issue is marketable and simple. We elect officials to represent us because we do not have time to study all the relevant issues, hold a job, and live a normal life. The media and political parties on both sides understand this and whittle down the arguments into two neat, polar opposites because we don’t have time to study the gray area (nor do most of us care). Thus political parties produce John Kerry’s and George Bush’s when it’s so obvious these are not qualified men and not the leaders when NEED.

My point is what if absolute consistency on any issue from the right or the left, Socialism to Capitalism, from the religiously devout to secular is an indication of mediocre intelligence and lack of intellectual purity? Then that would make Washington a den of mediocrity and Bryan incapable of intellectual honesty.

The Obama Administration allows different backgrounds based on where he’s speaking at hence my reasoning for questioning the physical covering of a religious symbol at a religious univeristy where he accepted the invitation to speak. Obama’s speech was not an address to Congress, the media, or the American people this was an address to a private, religious audience (or at least one can assume a highly religious audience) therefore IT IS surprising that his office has purposely chosen to cover the symbol for Christ.

By now you’ve probably at least read a headline or two about the Obama administration asking Georgetown to cover up IHS, which is a common Christogram based on the first three letters of “Jesus” in Greek, during his speech at Georgetown the nation’s oldest Catholic and Jesuit University.

Georgetown University says it covered over the monogram “IHS”–symbolizing the name of Jesus Christ—because it was inscribed on a pediment on the stage where President Obama spoke at the university on Tuesday and the White House had asked Georgetown to cover up all signs and symbols there.

Let’s put that aside for a second.  When President Obama recently visited the Middle East he visited a famous Mosque in Turkey. US President Barack Obama visited a landmark mosque in Istanbul Tuesday, following strong messages of US reconciliation with the Islamic world on his maiden trip to a Muslim country. Taking off his shoes as tradition requires, Obama stepped into the 16th-century Sultanahmet Mosque in the ancient heart of Istanbul, accompanied by Turkish Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdogan.

So the question here is why would our President, the President of a predominately Christian country, openly embrace the religious cultures and customs of the Muslim world and openly reject, cover up, the symbols of his own country that of the Christian religion at a Catholic University where he was invited to speak?

I’m sure you all remember how he took advantage, as ALL major candidates do, of religious symbolism during the Presidential campaign when he passed around literature much like the picture below and constantly invoked his Christian roots.  For example here’s a good piece from MSNBC during the campaign cycle: One piece (Campaign literature) features photos of Obama praying with the words “COMMITTED CHRISTIAN” in large letters across the middle. It says Obama will be a president “guided by his Christian faith” and includes a quote from him saying, “I believe in the power of pray.” I guess embracing Christianity was just convenient or necessary during the election.

Why would a “COMMITTED CHRISTIAN” cover up Jesus? Is he making a statement that he’s more powerful than the church?

So when Obama was in Turkey why didn’t he tell the Turks that he wasn’t going to take off his shoes? Was it because he was respecting their traditions like just about any diplomat would do? Chances are this is and was the case.  So then why not respect the tradition of the oldest Catholic college in the country? In his own Country!?  It just doesn’t make any sense?  Why is he doing this.  I have my theories….what are yours?