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The Masters is once again upon us, so you had to know it was only a matter of time before President Obama or a prominent member of his administration spoke up on Augusta National’s men-only policy. Today, White House spokesman Jay Carney got the call.
President Obama thinks women should be allowed membership in the Georgia golf club that is hosting the Masters tournament this week, according to the White House.
“His personal opinion is women should be admitted,” White House press secretary Jay Carney said in a press briefing on Thursday.
The Augusta National Golf Club, where the Masters golf tournament began on Thursday morning, only accepts male members, and is considered sacred ground in the world of professional golf. …
“We’ve kind of passed the time that women should be excluded from anything,” Carney said.
Interesting, Jay. If Augusta National became an Islamic golf club tomorrow, American liberal feminists and men like Jay Carney wouldn’t say a peep. Suddenly, criticizing the practices of the male members of such a club would be off limits. Barack Obama has nothing to say about “allies” like Hamid Karzai and his “code of conduct” for beating women, and yet a men’s golf club gets a dressing down from the White House Press Secretary. Telling.
Mr. Carney, I invite you to walk down to the nearest mosque in Northern Virgina, summon up the disdain in your voice that you had for Augusta, and say the exact same sentence: “We’ve kind of passed the time that women should be excluded from anything.” Something tells me that I’ll be waiting awhile…
With that said, let me be clear that I’m not inadvertently making the case against Augusta. Whereas I see Augusta as a club where a bunch of guys can get together, drink some beers, smoke a few cigars, play golf…and be guys, Islamic fundamentalists treat women as sub-humans and seek to dehumanize them through a variety of ways. I see Augusta as the ultimate “man cave” for American guys who like to play golf, and I see radical Islam as the religion for guys who literally want to bring us back to the Stone Age. Big difference.
I’m being somewhat facetious, but when is Barack Obama going to issue a statement on Curves, the women’s health and fitness club with the motto: “no makeup, no men, and no mirrors,”? Why do overweight women get a place to call their own and feel comfortable with their…curves, but chunky men on the verge of Type 2 diabetes get the cold shoulder? Or was that the cold double-chin? The point is, there are organizations that cater specifically to men, and there are organizations that cater specifically to women. Sadly, the type of person who wants men to become androgynous, “mantyhose” wearing fools also wants a world where men and women must do everything together. No thanks. I love my wife, but sometimes I like to hang out with a bunch of dudes and just be…a dude. Guys like Tim Allen have made really unfunny sitcoms featuring characters who do the same thing.
Now if you’ll excuse me, all this talk about guy stuff has me itching to watch the Expendables 2 trailer again.
Douglas Ernst Blog 
I’ll give up my mantyhose when they pry my cold dead legs from them. 🙂
Jim, I didn’t want to get a mental image of you in mantyhouse. I’m now going to figure out a way to wipe that image from my mind. 🙂
Fret not, Doug.
I only wear them over my face when knocking over gas stations 🙂
You can’t have it both ways. If you want to “win” the war in Afghanistan, the US is going to have to work with some unsavory types. You seemed okay with the quote from Tom Clancy advocating the same grey area in your article a few weeks ago, but bang out a blog post when Obama’s spokesperson doesn’t answer a question he wasn’t asked about a related topic. It disingenuous to suggest Obama doesn’t care because he has’t answered an unasked question.
I guess the “lamestream” media can’t get the job done. Why doesn’t a Fox News reporter on the White House beat ask him? Probably because nobody wants to hear the answer.
What you seem to want from our president is a categorical denouncement of practices of some segment of Muslims, which has the potential to worsen our already poor reputation in the eyes of the world’s roughly 1.25 BILLION Muslim people. Many of which are in countries whose resources are vital to say, you driving your car to Starbucks. Not going to happen. Nor is killing all of them. It’s a precarious and unfair situation, to be sure, but the complexities of geopolitics and ensuring our nation’s financial and physical security aren’t things that jives into a Rorschach-like worldview.
This is the last time I’ll say this. I’m done engaging in circuitous arguments with you. It’s possible be diplomatic, but crystal clear about the stakes and the problems. People freaked out over “tear down this wall,” …and then the wall came down. Clancy gets it. I get it. If you can’t, well, I gave it the old college try.
What I want from the president is a decent set of priorities. I don’t want him calling 30 year old law students and sucking up news cycles over the comments of a radio host. I don’t want him injecting himself in tired arguments over a golf course. He looks small and insignificant when he does that, probably because the truth of the matter is that he always was just a petty politician to begin with.
The president can stand up the world’s Muslims and essentially say, “Hey, get your act in gear. Police your nut cases or someone will police them for you. Reform, or deal with the consequences.” Unlike our politically correct friends, I don’t care if Muslims are offended by the truth. Issue a fatwa on my ass. I’m posting my thoughts for all the world to see, under my real name, with my location available to anyone who wants to dig. Since too many good Muslims are terrified of bodily harm if they speak up, I guess it’s up to conservative Americans and our few allies in the West with a spine to do the job for them. Muslims who aren’t fighting for reform should feel like a bunch of losers. I’d much rather be reading comics than writing about Islam or engaging with you, but some things are more important (i.e., taking on morons who threaten our life, liberty and pursuit of happiness).
“The president can stand up the world’s Muslims and essentially say, “Hey, get your act in gear. Police your nut cases or someone will police them for you. Reform, or deal with the consequences.”
Police Arab states because of human rights violations? Both wonderfully idealistic and horribly unrealistic.
Who’s going to force them to get their act together? Not us. We’re super broke borrowing for two wars in addition to our broken healthcare, underfunded social security, near economic collapse, and massive trade deficit. What you would have us do would destroy the republic making us go broke even faster. Rome all over again.
Maybe you should ask Bolton to bring it up at the next UN meeting. (I know he no longer goes, thanks.)
I’ve already stated that there are plenty of mechanisms for dealing with corrupt regimes that don’t harken to the “Rome” road you allude to.
Words are air. Ask Shin In Geun about the power of sanctions. Nobody cares about UN mandates. Direct military intervention costs money. Money we don’t have.
What we should do is export US culture via economic means. Show me one suicide bomber originating from a country with a high Starbucks per square mile ratio. All kidding aside, helping to increase the GDP of these backward countries is probably the right solution. Uneducated, dirt poor rubes are easier to convince to blow themselves up than someone who has to clock in to feed their family.
Maybe that’s idealistic too. Who knows?