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White House rebukes guests who flipped bird at Reagan portrait
The White House on Friday rebuked two visitors who were photographed last week at 1600 Pennsylvania Avenue flipping the middle finger below a portrait of the late President Ronald Reagan. When I was a teenager, back in the Upper Paleolithic, my Mom used to tell me that you knew about a person by the people they hung around with. I know all about President B.O. The guests had been invited to a reception last Friday marking gay pride month. The images of them -- with both middle fingers raised, pointing up toward Reagan -- were first published by Philadelphia Magazine. Mr. Reagan, y'see, was neither a homosexual nor a Democrat. In fact, he was pretty much the kind of person I wouldn't have minded my mother knowing I hung around with. The White House did not approve. My Mom wouldn't approve of most of the guys hanging around the White House, I think... "While the White House does not control the conduct of guests at receptions, we certainly expect that all attendees conduct themselves in a respectful manner. Most all do," Shin Inouye, a White House front man, said. "These individuals clearly did not. Behavior like this doesn't belong anywhere, least of all in the White House." No doubt they'll be better behaved the next time they come back. Photographer Zoe Strauss and Matty Hart, national director for public engagement at the group Solutions for Progress, had posted the images of themselves to Facebook. And what are we Progressing toward? Hart, under his, wrote simply: "F--- Reagan." Apparently we're progressing toward neither civility or good taste, nor the kind of language I didn't use around Mom. He later posted a link on his Facebook page to the Philadelphia Magazine piece about their gesture. Because he's proud of it. Neither Strauss nor Hart have responded to FoxNews.com for comment. Fox News is the enemy of that kind of Progress. Hart, though, defended his gesture in the Philadelphia Magazine article. "Ronald Reagan has blood on his hands," he said. "The man was in the White House as AIDS went kaboom!." Yasss... I remember the stories about how Reagan had the CIA develop the virus for some nefarious reason that escapes me... Hart said he doesn't care if he's not invited back to the White House. But he probably will be. That's Progress, after all... A third guest, Philadelphia publisher Mark Segal, was also photographed next to George W. Bush's portrait, but used a more tasteful thumbs-up in his picture. He told Philadelphia Magazine he has friends in the White House and "I'm not going to do something that could embarrass them." Posted by: Fred 2012-06-24 |
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