Roosters crowing

The cocks are crowing again.

Former failed Republican Presidential aspirant Rudy Giuliani started it by saying he isn’t sure President Obama loves America. He quickly tried to backtrack, explaining he wasn’t questioning Mr. Obama’s patriotism.

My, oh my!

No sooner had the old rooster crowed than that nasty old press asked the young roosters who are strutting and crowing to rule the Republican barnyard to chime in on Giuliani’s cock-a-doodle-do. Scott Walker, who was at the dinner where Giuliani made his statement, refused to comment on Giuliani’s statement one way or the other.

Days later while the issue was still live, a reporter again asked Walker to comment.

Leaning on the strategy that the best defense is a good offense, Walker blamed the press for making too much of statements like Giuliani’s. But it wasn’t the press who said that Mr. Obama wasn’t a native-born American citizen, or that he’s a secret Muslim, or that he hates America. It was members of Walker’s party who said those things. The press asked Mr. Walker if he thought the President was a Christian. In light of the history of character assassination leveled at the President, posing the question “Is President Obama a Christian?” to a young Rooster strutting around the barnyard with his eye on the Oval Office doesn’t seem like a fowl question.

Walker cried fowl. He replied that such questions are why people hate the press. People are tired of the media asking questions the American people don’t care about. Hmmm. Like whether a professing Christian President who quotes the New Testament in his speeches is a secret Muslim? The press card is very much like the race card. You only pull it out when you have no real defense.

In “The Insiders: Why would anyone think Obama doesn’t love America? Plenty of reasons,” a follow-up to the Giuliani story by Ed Rogers in The Washington Post argues that “Obama’s policies, declarations and overall conduct in office make some think he is dissatisfied with America and its self-image.”

Love and satisfaction are two different things. Can one love a country, a person, a group, a party, and be dissatisfied? If the answer is no, say good-bye to Martin Luther King, Jr. Say good-bye to Edward R. Murrow and Daniel Schorr. Say good-bye to the biblical prophet Amos whose tongue was sharper than Al Sharpton’s not because he hated his country but because he genuinely loved it.

The cocks are crowing in the barnyard. “Before the cock crows, you will deny me three times.” Roosters and the betrayal of truth have a long history. Whenever a rooster struts and crows, listen carefully.