Attorney General Eric Holder has had to cancel a planned speech in Oklahoma City. He was to address graduating cadets of the Oklahoma City Police Department. He is blaming the cancellation on a schedule conflict, but local leaders are not buying that excuse.
Mr. Holder’s scheduled visit to Oklahoma City drew the criticism of several conservative lawmakers who planned the protest in anticipation of his arrival, including Republican state Rep. Paul Wesselhoft, who has said he believes that Mr. Holder should be impeached.
“Our protest has turned into a victory celebration because we frankly didn’t want him here — and we succeeded,” Mr. Wesselhoft said in an interview. “This man has used his position to advance his own political agenda and that’s not right. He swore to uphold the U.S. Constitution and defend it for all of us — not some of us.”
Carla Russell, one of the about 100 activists who came out for the rally, held a sign that read: “Holder is a Terrorist.”
“He’s not coming because he’s a chicken,” Mrs. Russell told the Red Dirt Report, a local news website. “And he doesn’t want to be recorded with people protesting against him with signs like mine.”
I wonder if the Obama adminstration’s proposed clemency for drug offenders had anything to do with the cancellation. The optics of Holder standing before a graduating class of police officers in OKC and lauding them for protecting the public, while in Washington he has been working to put more drug offenders back on the streets, are more than a bit off-kilter.
Of course, Holder’s cancellation could just be because he is, in fact, a chicken. He recently whined about hostile treatment he has received in Congress — when he has accused the entire country of being a “nation of cowards.” Perhaps Holder can dish out the insults, but cannot take them.
Or. Let’s get Machiavellian for a second.
Holder just canceled a speech in Oklahoma. Michelle Obama just canceled a speech in Kansas. What do those states have in common?
Among other things, Romney won Kansas in 2012, 59-38, and he won Oklahoma 66-33. These are deep red states, at least in the Obama era.
In both of the cancellation cases there were local protests, but high officials always face protests. George W. Bush routinely faced protests and even had a whackadoo brigade camped out on the edge of his ranch in Texas. Obama was just protested in the Philippines, but that had no effect on his Pacific trip. The Secret Service can handle ordinary protests, as it does every time any of these high officials go anywhere. Well, when agents aren’t hanging out with hookers, anyway.
Could it be, that the two cancellations are part of a strategy by the White House to start painting opposition to itself as extreme and dangerous, so much so that they are having to cancel appearances in states that voted for Romney in 2012 and are Republican states?
This bunch already imposed abortifacient mandates on Catholic nuns and then declared that any opposition to those mandates constitutes a “war on women.” Nuns tend to be women, but look! Over there! A racist rancher! President Obama even lied about his recent meeting with the Pope, right after it happened.
Once you’ve done that sort of thing, are there really any smear tactics that remain out of bounds?
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