Odd isn’t it, that whenever a Republican is criticized by a Gold Star family member it becomes national news, but when it involves a Democrat the media is utterly silent.
Mainstream outlets always find stars in the Cindy Sheehans and Khizr Khans of the world, and now Myeisha Johnson.
To be sure, these families have a right to criticize – one should never begrudge the reaction of parents or spouses of those who lost loved ones in battle. It is an unimaginable pain.
The media however, continues to shove a microphone in their face, demanding they disparage President Bush or President Trump.
President Obama is a different story.
In 2011, 30 families watched their loved ones caskets return to Dover Air Base from Afghanistan. Obama was to meet with the grieving families, but they requested that he leave the media behind.
He ignored them …
Karen Vaughn, mother of Navy Seal Aaron Carson Vaughn killed in Afghanistan, was one of the family members who had asked him not to use her son’s death as a photo-op.
“The families unanimously asked Barack Obama to not bring any media, to not make this a media event, that he was welcome to be with us but no media,” she insisted. “And you know, he showed up with cameras, and the next day our pictures or his picture saluting the caskets of our boys was plastered over every outlet in America.”
In 2009, the Obama administration lifted a ban on photos at military coffins, allowing him the opportunity to be photographed with them as in Dover.
Obama salutes the coffin of Army Sgt. Dale Griffin, killed in Afghanistan, at Dover Air Force Base, Oct 29, 2009. pic.twitter.com/V04qncnuIB
— Robert Stevens (@ganeshpuri89) October 16, 2017
This despite a poll conducted by Families United for Our Troops and Their Mission, an organization representing 60,000 families of military personnel, which at the time suggested 64 percent did not want the policy rescinded. Another 21 percent said it could be changed only on a case-by-case basis. Only 12 percent believed photos should be allowed at military coffins.
Vaughn also recently claimed that President Obama took his photo op with the caskets of Navy Seal Team 6, and then walked off the tarmac before the caskets of other soldiers were taken off the plane.
“The President stuck around for our ceremony and then left before those bodies came off the plane,” she said. He “never even went and spoke to those families of the fallen heroes because they weren’t SEAL Team 6 and it would do him no good politically.”
President Trump’s wording in the phone call to Johnson’s family may have been poorly chosen, but nobody – NOBODY – can claim Obama had more respect for Gold Star families.
Who do you think has more respect for the military – Trump or Obama? Share your thoughts below!
