Surprisingly Few Requests to Have POTUS Speak at High School Graduations — Could It Be Growing Dissatisfaction, Rising Gas Prices, & Record Deficit?
Posted By Vicki McClure Davidson on March 7, 2011
The inherent vice of capitalism is the unequal sharing of the blessings. The inherent blessing of socialism is the equal sharing of misery.
— Sir Winston Churchill
All is not going well at 1600 Pennsylvania Avenue. Per recent Rasmussen polls, 71% of Americans polled believe government workers get better pensions than those in the private sector and the opposition to Obama’s offshore drilling ban has now risen to 55%. We have oil prices exploding at a nearly unprecedented rate, and the president is strangely silent. The national deficit and debt continue to rise (Spellchek points out today that for February, the federal government’s deficit spending was a crushing $92,000 PER SECOND — the largest monthly deficit in ALL OF HISTORY was this past February, with the record-breaking $223 billion shortfall surpassing in just one month all of George W. Bush’s during his final full year in office).
More gloom — Gallup puts the president’s approval today at a dismal 47% and billions of hidden dollars to fund the unpopular, unsustainable ObamaCare were unearthed. And despite what the left-wing media claims, record unemployment is still in the proverbial toilet.
Yet, despite this ever-growing dissatisfaction of POTUS, his performance, and his agenda (today’s presidential approval index is at negative 11), it still comes as a surprise to learn that few high schools want Pres. Obama as a graduation guest speaker this year. One would presume that ultra-liberal establishments of learning would blithely disregard a record-breaking deficit or low approval rating.
As of the most recent reporting, only fourteen schools had submitted applications to the White House.
FOURTEEN. In the entire nation.
Stunning.
Reported by CBS News, White House memo notes shortage of applicants for contest to have Obama to speak at high school graduation:
The White House is ramping up an effort to promote a nationwide competition to decide which high school wins a commencement speech by President Obama.
An internal White House memo indicates that the White House is facing a shortage of applications less than a week before the deadline.
The competition was extended from the February 25 deadline until Friday, March 11 after few schools met the original application deadline. CBS News has learned a White House Communications Office internal memo dated February 22 noted “a major issue with the Commencement Challenge.”
“As of yesterday we had received 14 applications and the deadline is Friday,” the memo said. The memo also urged recipients to, “please keep the application number close hold.”
A follow-up memo on February 28 reported receipt of 68 applications. Noting the competition among more than 1,000 schools last year, the memo said, “Something isn’t working.” It called on staffers to ask “friendly congressional, gubernatorial and mayoral offices” to encourage schools to apply.
“We should also make sure the Cabinet is pushing the competition out to their lists,” the memo said. The note reiterated, “We do not want the actual application number out there (we didn’t release the number of applications we received last year until after the submission period)-so folks should not use it in their pitches.”
On Monday, officials declined to cite the number of applications received so far.
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Ma’am, as a sometime contributer to your pages,from a lind faraway, i keep coming across a world POTUS
could you explain this curious americanism please.
also, is there a time limit on any given contribution, does the capcode in this case YZ7F ‘time-out’, i have tried many ways of protecting myself from the white-page error, where any and all efforts are consigned to the ether.
should i enter the capcode first, or wait untill finished and then enter the capcode
thankyo in anticipation
POTUS = President Of The United States (an acronym, takes up less space and I use it for variety or for mood)
Other acronyms I use, as do other bloggers:
FLOTUS = First Lady Of The United States
TOTUS = Teleprompter Of The United States
CIC = Commander In Chief
DOJ = Department of Justice
DOD = Department of Defense
HHS = Health and Human Services
Regarding your query about posting comments:
Enter the capcode AFTER you’ve written your comment – I don’t know if there is a time limit with the security widget, but depending on what is going on with your Internet provider or mine, it could indeed time out. Not because of the cap code, but because of servicing or other delays that you or I have no control over. Tonight I’m having MANY delays and a few time-outs while I’m working on behind-the-scenes uploads (urrrrgh), and it’s likely because of something that is going on with the technical staff with my website provider (any number of possibilities, such as software upgrades, glitches in the system, etc.) To play it safe when you’re posting a comment, copy your comment and insert it in a Word document or notepad or something similar so that if it should time out (and your comment evaporates into cyberspace), you can copy/paste it and not have lost it.
Hope that helps – I’m finally off to bed… very late here in AZ.