Are you sitting down for this one? By order of one President Obama, Oct. 16-22 is National Character Counts Week. I’ll pause while you recover from you peals of laughter.
Yes, a president from the Democratic Party issued a proclamation about how much character matters. Here’s part of the Oct. 16 news release from the White House office of the press secretary:
“In times of adversity and triumph alike, the American people have been guided by the strength of our character. With resilience and compassion, we have provided for our neighbors, lifted their spirits, and embraced our shared humanity.
“During National Character Counts Week, we celebrate our country’s core values and commit to passing them on to the next generation.
“By setting a positive example for our children, we can inspire in them the virtues that define our nation: personal integrity, bold ingenuity, and a drive to serve others. America’s role models — from parents and teachers to community leaders and coaches — play an integral role in shaping character.
“They foster patriotism, promote civic pride, and teach young people to live by the Golden Rule by treating others the way they want to be treated.
“Together, all Americans must cultivate moral fortitude, preach tolerance, and demonstrate the value of respect for those different from ourselves.”
Ah, commendable words indeed! Now, who’s going to tell the president that some of what he said runs counter to the principles of the party he leads?
Take that part about cherishing “the value of respect for those different from ourselves.” Try being a black conservative or Republican in a city, county or state with a heavy population of Democrats.
Have Democrats, especially black ones, “valued” and “respected” the views of black conservatives and Republicans that are different from their own?
Well, we pretty much know the answer to that one. Now on to that business Obama talked about in his proclamation, the stuff concerning “personal integrity” and “moral fortitude.”
Now I don’t suggest Democrats don’t possess these traits. In fact, I suggest most of them do. What’s inconsistent here is how Democrats have reacted in the past — and present — to the one Democrat whose career in public office showed that he possessed neither “personal integrity,” nor “moral fortitude.”
I’m talking, of course, about former President William Jefferson Clinton, he of the oral sex-with-a-White-House-intern-and-roving-cigar-in-certain-body-orifices fame.
The intern’s name was Monica Lewinsky, and Clinton’s shenanigans with her led to his being impeached on charges of obstruction of justice and suborning perjury.
That didn’t prevent some Clinton supporters from running around wildly claiming, contrary to the facts and reality, that their guy had been impeached for having oral sex.
After Clinton’s impeachment, he got more popular with Democrats, not less. The more he lied, the more he showed a lack of personal integrity and moral fortitude, the more popular he got with Democrats. They’d have nominated him for, and elected him to be, emperor for life if they could have.
Fortunately for the rest of us, there was this not-so-minor thing called the U.S. Constitution preventing them from doing that.
Why does this matter, now that Obama’s in the White House? Because Clinton still travels around the country, stumping for Democrats. He visited Baltimore in late 2010 to stump for Gov. Martin O’Malley’s re-election bid.
He’ll be stumping for Obama’s re-election bid next year, and Obama will welcome Clinton’s support with open arms. The issue of Clinton’s character will be brought up not once.
Ponder this as we celebrate National Character Counts Week.
Examiner Columnist Gregory Kane is a Pulitzer nominated news and opinion journalist who has covered people and politics from Baltimore to the Sudan.
