Following the massacre of students at Umpqua Community College in Roseburg, Oregon, last Friday, President Obama issued a statement of condolence and reiterated his determination to press for more gun laws.
On Monday he announced that he would visit Roseburg to console the families of the victims. But apparently this was not by invitation, and resistance to his unwelcome intrusion is building.
In last Friday’s remarks, the president made clear his agenda:
The United States of America is the one advanced nation on earth in which we do not have sufficient common-sense gun-safety laws — even in the face of repeated mass killings….
So tonight … I’d ask the American people to think about how they can get their government to change these laws….
And that will require a change of politics on this issue.
To promote his version of the change that is needed, he asserted, “Each time this happens I’m going to bring this up … I’ve got to have a Congress and I’ve got to have state legislatures and governors who are willing to work with me on this.”
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On Monday the White House announced that this coming Friday the president would visit Roseburg to console the victims’ families and to promote that agenda, whether the community wants him there or not.
That same day David Jaques, the publisher of the Roseburg Beacon, told Bill O’Reilly on The O’Reilly Factor that the president won’t be welcome:
I think the president … is not welcome in our community.
And that isn’t just my opinion. We’ve talked with dozens upon dozens of citizens, some family members of the victims [and] our elected officials….
Our Douglas County commissioners, along with our Douglas County elected sheriff (who is very popular) and our chief of police all came to [the same conclusion] about him not being welcome here to grandstand for political purposes….
We still haven’t finished counting the bodies … We haven’t identified whose children were killed … and even at that same moment, [Obama] was saying, “Some people will accuse me of politicizing this issue”….
So he’s not only acknowledged that it could be to politicize but was doing so deliberately….
So now he wants to come to our community to stand on the corpses of our loved ones to make some kind of political point and it isn’t going to be well-received — not by our people, not by our families, and not even by our elected officials.
Adding emphasis to the point, a Facebook page is inviting protesters to arrive at the airport on Friday to remind the president that they don’t want him there:
The anointed one, his majesty king Obama and the White House have announced a Friday arrival in Roseburg, Oregon, in the wake of October 1st’s horrific tragedy at UCC.
Polarizing as usual, Mr. Obama has insisted on politicizing the event as a conduit for increased executive orders on gun control via means of his pen and his phone.
[This is] blatant disrespect for the victims’ families….
We need a lot of people. Please come and show your support for Roseburg, not for the little man who has no respect for the Constitution.
At the time of writing, more than 2,900 citizens have confirmed that they’ll be there to remind the president that not only is his message for more gun control laws falling on deaf ears, but his blatant disregard for families in mourning in order to promote his agenda is unwelcome.
The silence from the mainstream media about this upcoming protest is deafening. The New York Times, the Washington Post, and the Associated Press, among others, announced the uninvited visit by the president to Roseburg with nary a word about the gathering storm waiting for him on Friday. With thousands of mourners coming together to remind Obama that he is intruding on their grief in order to make political points with anti-gunners, that same media will be hard-pressed not to tell the folks back home about the president’s unwanted visit to a town in mourning with a message they don’t want to hear.
Photo: AP Images
A graduate of an Ivy League school and a former investment advisor, Bob is a regular contributor to The New American magazine and blogs frequently at www.LightFromTheRight.com, primarily on economics and politics.
