What Sasha, Malia learned

By SHERMAN FREDERICK

Stephens Media

What did Americans do to deserve such a jellyfish for president?

We’re a good people, aren’t we? But just when you think you’ve elected a man of vision and principle (even if it is not your vision or principle), the guy proves he’s just another spineless, two-faced politician more interested in re-election than in the right education of his own children. Take President Barack Obama’s defense of civil public discourse. Please.

That topic jumped to dinner table conversation for Americans when a Georgetown University law student by the name of Sandra Fluke testified before Congress on her desire for students to get free contraception and abortion pills from the university — something the Catholic university does not provide on moral grounds.

Her testimony sparked an extended riff by conservative Rush Limbaugh on his talk radio show. Her testimony was derided in a most unflattering way. Limbaugh speculated that Fluke wanted free birth control pills because she was promiscuous, only he used a four-letter word to describe her and, no, it wasn’t “tart.”

Anyhow, Limbaugh’s rebuke resonated with those in the theater of absurd American politics. Democrats, sensing momentum on the contraception debate, leaped to cuddle Fluke. Republicans slowly exited, stage right.

Another all-too-routine scene, if it were not for the audacity of President Obama.

Getting into the act, he called Fluke and offered her a pat on the head and a resounding, “There, there.” The president explained that he gave Miss Fluke a pep call because he thought about daughters Malia and Sasha, “and one of the things I want them to do as they get older is to engage in issues they care about, even ones I may not agree with them on. … And I do not want them attacked or called horrible names because they’re being good citizens.”

Such compassion for his children. What a champion for civil discourse. Right?

Wrong. Obama’s outrage is a one-way street. Political comedian/activist Bill Maher made ugly headlines not long before when he described Sarah Palin in far worse terms than Limbaugh described Fluke.

Limbaugh apologized for his mistake. Maher, meanwhile, has never looked back after calling Palin two separate vulgar names for a woman’s vagina. Judging from the White House silence regarding Maher’s slurs, the president must have thought it was acceptable discourse.

Certainly there was no phone call to Palin, and no subsequent news conference about how he feared for Malia and Sasha’s future ability to speak out and not be “called horrible names.” The lesson Obama projected to the national stage was that his “outrage” doesn’t extend to conservative women. Maher has since donated $1 million to re-elect Obama. And Obama’s Democratic National Committee chairwoman, Rep. Debbie Wasserman Schultz, has appeared on Maher’s show, laughing all the way.

If President Obama really meant what he said about leading the country into a more civilized debate that doesn’t demean or insult, I should think we’d see him not only calling Miss Fluke, but also calling Bill Maher and giving him his $1 million back — and firing Wasserman Schultz from the DNC.

It takes a backbone to lead America. It requires not only a rebuke of those you don’t agree with, but a firm disassociation — or at least a hard thwack across the knuckles — for your friends who cross the same line.

What the president’s two little girls should have learned last week is that if you are unwilling to face the cruelty of the latter, you’ll never lead the former to better behavior. Friend or foe, civil discourse requires higher character and, sometimes, sacrifice.

What I’m afraid Malia and Sasha learned about their father is that when it comes to vulgar verbal attacks, conservative women are fair game.

Sherman Frederick is former publisher of the Las Vegas Review-Journal.