Sunday, February 21, 2016

Needed: a Touch of Class

    Antonin Scalia was one of the greatest Supreme Court justices of all time. News of his death filled the front pages of newspapers around the world, because he was a great jurist, whether or not one agrees with his originalist interpretation of the Constitution. But not all mourn his departure. President Obama is one of those who sees Scalia's death not as a loss to this country, but as an opportunity to tip the balance of the Supreme Court in favor of his leftist agenda.
    The president may have considered Scalia an ideological opponent, but he owed the justice a measure of respect nonetheless. Obama ceretainly did not show any when he chose not to attend Justice Scalia's funeral. What he did show was an embarassing lack of class.
    This not the first time Obama has shown a lack of class. One of the first actions he took when assuming the presidency was to return the bust of Winston Churchill to Great Britain, a deliberate insult to a nation he despised for its colonialism. Not long after that he showed a lack a class by not attending the funeral of Margaret Thatcher, one of the greatest prime ministers in the history of Great Britain. She is not the only world leader he snubbed during his term in office. His absence was noted at the funerals of presidents and prime ministers from Israel, Singapore, South Korea, Zambia, Georgia, and Spain. But he did attend the funeral of Nelson Mandela.
    A lack of class says a lot about the character of a man. When Obama puts his feet up on his desk or prances around the Oval Office taking selfies of himself, he shows a lack of class. When he declines to join world leaders marching arm-in-arm after the Charlie Hebdo massacre, he shows a lack of class. When he responds to a video of ISIS beheading an American by going off to play golf, he shows a lack of class.


    Barack Obama may be a brilliant politician and a spell-binding orator, but as the leader of our country and our first representative to the world, I just wish he had a little more class.

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