Sunday, September 28, 2008

Obama's Forgotten Soldier

For a young guy, Obama seems to have a real problem with his memory. Like misstating how many states are in our Union, for instance. Or forgetting the name of the soldier who's name he wears on a wristband. Or forgetting that the parents of our fallen hero asked Obama to please stop wearing the bracelet:

Barack Obama played the "me too" game during the Friday debates on September 26 after Senator John McCain mentioned that he was wearing a bracelet with the name of Cpl. Matthew Stanley, a resident of New Hampshire and a soldier that lost his life in Iraq in 2006. Obama said that he too had a bracelet. After fumbling and straining to remember the name, he revealed that his had the name of Sergeant Ryan David Jopek of Merrill, Wisconsin.

Shockingly, however, Madison resident Brian Jopek, the father of Ryan Jopek, the young soldier who tragically lost his life to a roadside bomb in 2006, recently said on a Wisconsin Public Radio show that his family had asked Barack Obama to stop wearing the bracelet with his son's name on it. Yet Obama continues to do so despite the wishes of the family....

Radio host Glenn Moberg of the show "Route 51" asked Mr. Jopek, a man who believes in the efforts in Iraq and is not in favor of Obama's positions on the war, what he and his ex-wife think of Obama continually using their son's name on the campaign trail. (h/t D. Keith Howington of www.dehavelle.com)
Jopek began by saying that his ex-wife was taken aback, even upset, that Obama has made the death of her son a campaign issue.


More at Dehavelle:

According to the father, Tracy Jopek wrote to the Senator: “She had asked him not to wear the bracelet.”

The WPR host — clearly anti-war (and quoting Lancet numbers of deaths) suggested that Obama had not worn it recently. This was months ago.

Here’s the clincher — Barack Obama is using the bracelet to support a position that his father (and Ryan Jopek himself) clearly do not subscribe to, and at the time even the mother that gave him the bracelet didn’t want it used in the media (that comment was made here) and asked him to take it off.

Whatever Tracey Jopek's initial motives were, I don't think she realized she had played into the hands of a con man; by giving him something personal to exploit for his own gain.

But that's all Obama is: A grifter, saying one thing while doing another, telling us to "look into his eyes" while he stacks the deck and moves the chips. And as usual, we have heartbreak and confusion left in the shyster's wake, wondering how such a sure thing could have turned out so wrong. Watch for the slips - like the inability to remember a soldier's name wrapped around his wrist -because it gives up the game. The bracelet is just an insignificant detail, the image is the thing wherin he'll capture the conscious of the electorate....

Welcome to Barack Obama's America. It begins with an forgotten soldier....

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