At this holiday of homecoming and giving thanks, I want to thank the Obamas for giving all people the image of a wholesome and functional American family.
Through all of it, they have been an example for positive, enlightened living. I am always touched that Marian Shields Robinson, the mother of Michelle Obama, lives with them, is part of so many activities. I have a friend in the White House press corps who sometimes travels with the President. He once told me there is an Obama rule, when possible: home by suppertime. Excursions to American cities are often planned with a mid-afternoon getaway, so the President can be at the table to ask, "So, how was your day?" That may have changed as the girls grew older, but his priority for family life was a factor for years. I will miss having a President who can imitate Al Green, sing "Amazing Grace," and preside over his last medal ceremony with such eloquence and knowledge -- about athletes, about scientists, about pioneers. Michelle Obama has been a passionate advocate for education, for women's rights, for exercise and healthy eating. And she always has her husband's back, as an equal. I look forward to her next acts, and those of their children. I hope they enjoy this Thanksgiving,
Joshua Rubin
11/23/2016 11:23:58 am
Nicely put. A great family and a real class act. I worry it may be a long time before we see this kind of sheer decency in the White House again. He did not warrant the kind and volume of disrespect he received. Now his favorables are near 60%. The Obamas will be sorely missed. As Joni Mitchell put it, "don't it always seem to go that you don't know what you've got til it's gone."
George Vecsey
11/23/2016 12:39:07 pm
Josh: In one word, Oy.
Brian Savin
11/23/2016 09:43:06 pm
There is a story here. In this last medal ceremony our President bestowed the Medal of Freedom on, among many others, Newt Minow, the Sidley and Austin partner who helped set him up to run for President. See, e.g.,
Gene Palumbo
11/24/2016 12:59:15 pm
Brian Savin:
Brian Savin
11/27/2016 09:28:28 pm
Gene, as I said, there is a story here. In my judgment, it is a very, very important story that goes to the very fabric of our current national politics, and then some. The elephant in the room. I never intentionally mislead. In fact, I think I have written quite a bit about my view.
Gene Palumbo
12/5/2016 06:11:59 pm
Brian –
Ed Martin
11/24/2016 11:21:05 pm
Happy Thanksgiving, I agree 105 percent, that the Obamas are special. At the time, I admired Eisenhower, Kennedy, Carter, G.H.W. Bush, Carter and Clinton, although I disagreed on policy. Obama has been the most admirable: humane, honest, intelligent, rational and principled. His family has never created an embarrassing moment for the nation. I look forward to his future contributions to our good.
George Vecsey
11/25/2016 10:42:28 am
Ed: I always regarded JFK as "my" president because his election came the same fall we were married -- a new decade, a new age, so it seemed. But I have more family loyalty to the Obamas, a few years older than our children, but the same generation, with a positive outlook. They have done us all proud.
John McDermott
11/25/2016 10:44:38 am
I will miss this President and his family. I live abroad and I wish people back in the USA could kniw just how much they are respected and admired in the rest of the world(and how perplexed and fearful many of the same people are now). 11/26/2016 08:59:40 pm
I was undecided between Clinton and Obama during the 2008 Democratic primaries. I knew that she was very capable and had political experience, but there was something appealing about him that was refreshing.
bruce
11/27/2016 06:32:37 pm
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Measuring Covid Deaths, by David Leonhardt. July 17, 2023. NYT online. The United States has reached a milestone in the long struggle against Covid: The total number of Americans dying each day — from any cause — is no longer historically abnormal…. After three horrific years, in which Covid has killed more than one million Americans and transformed parts of daily life, the virus has turned into an ordinary illness. The progress stems mostly from three factors: First, about three-quarters of U.S. adults have received at least one vaccine shot. Second, more than three-quarters of Americans have been infected with Covid, providing natural immunity from future symptoms. (About 97 percent of adults fall into at least one of those first two categories.) Third, post-infection treatments like Paxlovid, which can reduce the severity of symptoms, became widely available last year. “Nearly every death is preventable,” Dr. Ashish Jha, who was until recently President Biden’s top Covid adviser, told me. “We are at a point where almost everybody who’s up to date on their vaccines and gets treated if they have Covid, they rarely end up in the hospital, they almost never die.” That is also true for most high-risk people, Jha pointed out, including older adults — like his parents, who are in their 80s — and people whose immune systems are compromised. “Even for most — not all but most —immuno-compromised people, vaccines are actually still quite effective at preventing against serious illness,” he said. “There has been a lot of bad information out there that somehow if you’re immuno-compromised that vaccines don’t work.” That excess deaths have fallen close to zero helps make this point: If Covid were still a dire threat to large numbers of people, that would show up in the data. One point of confusion, I think, has been the way that many Americans — including we in the media — have talked about the immuno-compromised. They are a more diverse group than casual discussion often imagines. Most immuno-compromised people are at little additional risk from Covid — even people with serious conditions, such as multiple sclerosis or a history of many cancers. A much smaller group, such as people who have received kidney transplants or are undergoing active chemotherapy, face higher risks. Covid’s toll, to be clear, has not fallen to zero. The C.D.C.’s main Covid webpage estimates that about 80 people per day have been dying from the virus in recent weeks, which is equal to about 1 percent of overall daily deaths. The official number is probably an exaggeration because it includes some people who had virus when they died even though it was not the underlying cause of death. Other C.D.C. data suggests that almost one-third of official recent Covid deaths have fallen into this category. A study published in the journal Clinical Infectious Diseases came to similar conclusions. Dr. Shira Doron, the chief infection control officer at Tufts Medicine in Massachusetts, told me that “age is clearly the most substantial risk factor.” Covid’s victims are both older and disproportionately unvaccinated. Given the politics of vaccination, the recent victims are also disproportionately Republican and white. Each of these deaths is a tragedy. The deaths that were preventable — because somebody had not received available vaccines and treatments — seem particularly tragic. (Here’s a Times guide to help you think about when to get your next booster shot.) *** From the great Maureen Dowd: As I write this, I’m in a deserted newsroom in The Times’s D.C. office. After working at home for two years during Covid, I was elated to get back, so I could wander around and pick up the latest scoop. But in the last year, there has been only a smattering of people whenever I’m here, with row upon row of empty desks. Sometimes a larger group gets lured in for a meeting with a platter of bagels." --- Dowd writes about the lost world of journalists clustered in newsrooms at all hours, smoking, drinking, gossipping, making phone calls, typing, editing. *** "Putting out the paper," we called it. Much more than nostalgia. ---https://www.nytimes.com/2023/04/29/opinion/journalism-newsroom.html Categories
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