Obama praised
It is unfortunate that it was necessary, but I pleased to see that President Obama used the power of his bully pulpit at a recent Capitol unity luncheon to condemn the “vulgar and divisive rhetoric” of this presidential election campaign season and to decry the violence that has accompanied it.
Whatever one thinks of Barack Obama’s policies and occasions on which he has stymied the will of Republicans, he has comported himself as a gentleman president. I did not ever have to worry that he would publicly make an obscene gesture. He did not ever bring an opponent’s small hands, perspiration or urine into a debate nor boast of his sexual prowess. He is entirely qualified to speak to the nation about the corrosive environment in which we live, one in which an X rating must be applied to any Republican presidential debate, forums in which John Kasich has the only non-mudslinger and mature adult.
I hope that the words of the president will bring embarrassment to some who have taken political discourse to a new low, but at least he said what needed to be heard, this is not his America, and it certainly is not mine.
Oren M. Spiegler is a resident of Upper St. Clair.